Major nationwide cell phone outage

What we know about the outage

Several U.S. cell service providers, including AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon, are reported by Downdetector to have experienced outages, affecting customers' ability to make and receive calls or texts.

AT&T saw a peak in outages with 32,800 reports around 4:30 a.m., and has acknowledged the issue, advising customers to use Wi-Fi calling while they work to restore service.

Support my independent journalism by becoming a paid subscriber for only $5 a month. Help support me to keep this content free to everyone.

Verizon reported over 1,500 outages by 6 a.m. but stated its network is operating normally, attributing problems to interactions with other carriers. T-Mobile, however, reported no outages, suggesting the Downdetector data might reflect issues related to connectivity with other networks.

The outages are widespread, affecting various cities across the South and Southwest of the U.S., and have impacted the ability to contact emergency services like 911 in some areas. Downdetector compiles its outage data from various sources, including user reports.

"Verizon's network is operating normally," a statement from Verizon to Fox Business said. "Some customers experienced issues this morning when calling or texting with customers served by another carrier. We are continuing to monitor the situation."

"UPDATE: Texts to 911 from affected AT&T users are now being received. If you have an emergency, and cannot dial out, send a text message to 911," Flagler County Sheriff's Office in Florida posted in a subsequent post to X, after alerting people nearly an hour and a half prior about the outage.