TRENTON, NJ – If you live in New Jersey and your mobile phone isn’t working today, there’s a good reason why and you’re not alone.
AT&T customers across the United States experienced significant disruptions Thursday morning, with widespread outages affecting the ability to make calls, send texts, and access the internet. While some outages were also reported by Verizon and T-Mobile users, these incidents were considerably less widespread, with both companies stating their networks remained operational and suggesting the issues for their customers were due to the inability to connect with AT&T users.
For those affected by the AT&T outage, the company recommends activating Wi-Fi calling if Wi-Fi access is available, allowing customers to continue sending texts and making calls. Over 74,000 AT&T customers reported issues on DownDetector, a digital service tracking platform, although this figure only accounts for self-reported incidents. The number of reports peaked in the 9 am ET hour but began to stabilize shortly after.
AT&T has acknowledged the service interruptions, stating they are working urgently to restore connectivity. The company has yet to provide a specific reason for the outage or an estimated time for full service restoration. In the interim, AT&T is advising customers to use Wi-Fi calling and is responding to customer complaints through direct messages on social media platforms.
The cause of the outage is not officially confirmed but is speculated to involve issues with peering—the process by which cellular services transition calls from one network to another. Despite the disruption, there is no current evidence to suggest that the outage was caused by a cyberattack or any form of malicious activity. This event follows recent sporadic outages, including a temporary 911 service disruption in parts of the southeastern United States, though nationwide outages of this magnitude remain exceedingly rare.