Telecommunication outages impacted Multiple Carriers not just AT&T

Telecommunications giant AT&T says it restored service and apologized after customers reported problems with calls and texting. Upon closer inspection, outages by multiple carriers is troubling.

Feb 22 – AT&T (T.N) emerges from the shadows, announcing the restoration of wireless service to those beleaguered souls who found themselves ensnared in the tangled web of disruption with SOS symbols this morning. Following a tumultuous cellular blackout that plunged countless American users into the abyss of silence and presence of mind, federal agencies set forth to probe and inquire for a root cause. The wireless giant, with its 5G canopy extending over nearly 290 million souls across the United States, grappled with the specter of interruption for a relentless duration surpassing ten hours. In the midst of all the chaos many news/media agencies failed to notice or elaborate on the fact that many communications organizations we’re impacted simultaneously. Below you will find just a few of the organizations we found on the trusted website downdetector.com.

February 22, 2024 4:00PM – (DownDetector.com) Snapshot shows outage issues occurring simultaneously at the same time in the same frequency

“We are taking steps to ensure our customers do not experience this again in the future,” AT&T said in a statement on its website.

The Federal Communications Commission said it was investigating the incident, while the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) said it was working with AT&T to understand the cause.

White House spokesman John Kirby said the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) were looking into the AT&T outage. CISA is a unit of DHS.

“The FBI and Department of Homeland Security are assisting with the Federal Communication Commission’s investigation into the outage. The outage’s cause remains unknown. This just happened earlier today and so we’re working very hard to see if we can get to the ground truth and exactly what happened.” – National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby told reporters, according to NBC

“We are being told AT&T has no reason to think this was a cyber or security incident,” said Kirby, adding that the FCC was in touch with the company.

“But the bottom line is we don’t have all the answers,” he said about the cause of the outage.

AT&T declined to comment on the FCC’s investigation into the incident.

The company did not provide a reason for the outage or the number of affected users.

AT&T shares were down 2.4% in afternoon trading. There were about 3,255 incidents of outages reported around 2:47 p.m. ET (1947 GMT), according to tracking website Downdetector.com, down from more than 70,000 earlier in the day.