AT&T says it has resolved software issue that caused an outage for some wireless customers

AT&T wireless service was down for some customers for parts of Tuesday because of a software issue that has since been resolved, the company said.

"We've resolved a software issue that disrupted the ability of a limited number of our customers to connect to our wireless network," an AT&T spokesperson said in an email early Wednesday. "We apologize for the inconvenience, and we appreciate our customers' patience as we worked to resolve this issue."

Details about the number of impacted customers and the length of the outage weren't immediately released. But the digital-service tracking website Down Detector showed a surge in reported AT&T outages starting around 5 p.m. ET on Tuesday and peaking around 7 p.m. By 10 p.m., the number of reported incidents was declining steeply, according to the site.

The outage affected "some customers" but was not nationwide, the spokesperson said in a separate email Tuesday night. Still, according to Down Detector early Wednesday, the cities with the most reports of AT&T outages in the previous 24 hours were Dallas, Charlotte, Los Angeles, Houston, Chicago and New York City - appearing to represent a broad geographical range.

Sprinkled across the country were government entities noting that the outage was or might be preventing AT&T wireless customers from calling 911 in their area.

In Tennessee on Tuesday evening, the 911 agency in Hawkins County said an AT&T wireless service outage "may affect the ability of some AT&T wireless customers to reach our 911 center." The agency, posting on X, urged people to call its non-emergency line if they were unable to connect with 911.

In California, police in the city of Pinole said in a social media post Tuesday evening that some AT&T wireless callers "may have issues calling 911," but added that "landlines as well as other wireless carriers" were not affected. San Jose police said the AT&T outage affected people's ability to call 911 there late Tuesday afternoon, but about three hours later said service had been restored.

In Arkansas, the city of North Little Rock similarly said Tuesday night the outage was impacting the delivery of AT&T 911 calls there, and two hours later said the outage had been resolved.

And in Florida, the Seminole County government's X account referred Tuesday night to an "outage when calling 911," and urged people to call a "non-emergency number ... for emergencies until the issue is resolved." It was not immediately clear whether that outage related to AT&T's issues.

The AT&T outage came just one day after the Federal Communications Commission announced a $950,000 settlement with AT&T to resolve an investigation into whether the company violated FCC rules by failing to deliver 911 calls and timely notify 911 call centers during an August 2023 outage. The outage happened in parts of Illinois, Kansas, Texas and Wisconsin. AT&T agreed to implement a three-year plan "to ensure future compliance with the FCC's 911 and outage notification rules" as part of the settlement.

"Service providers have an obligation to transmit 911 calls and notify 911 call centers of outages in a timely manner," FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said in a news release.

AT&T's outage is among several the company has experienced this year. On February 22, the company's network went down for many customers across the United States, leaving them unable to place calls, text or access the internet for hours. An initial review suggested the cause was an error within the company, AT&T said. On June 4, another problem prevented many AT&T customers from completing calls between carriers.

People in several states have had issues calling 911 in recent months. In April, a 911 outage in Nevada, South Dakota and Nebraska was caused by the installation of a light pole, according to Lumen, a company that supports some of the 911 systems. An outage that shut down the 911 system in Massachusetts for two hours on June 18 was caused by a computer firewall, a preliminary investigation revealed. Several states, including Alaska and Arizona, experienced 911 service disruptions during a global tech outage in July.

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