Is AT&T down? Reports of nationwide outages may also be impacting Verizon and T-Mobile

Marley Malenfant , Austin American-Statesman

Couldn’t make a phone call this morning?

Customers with cellular service through AT&T may be impacted by massive nationwide outages, which could also be impacting Verizon and T-Mobile users, according to Downdetector, a real-time outage monitoring website.

T-Mobile claimed there were no outages this morning, according to a statement.

Customers are seeing SOS only where service bars usually appear on their devices. Here's what that means.

What time did the AT&T outage happen?

According to Downdetector, more than 30,000 outages were reported at 3:29 a.m. ET this morning. By 6:59 a.m. ET, there were up to 71,000 outages.

AT&T customers reported an outage to their cellular service early this morning.
AT&T customers reported an outage to their cellular service early this morning.

Why is my phone on SOS only?

When a user's cell phone isn’t connected to a cellular network, they will typically alert the user by giving an indication in the phone's status bar. Those notifications usually say “No Service” or “Searching,” but your phone may also say “SOS” or “SOS only.” When your phone goes into SOS mode, it can still make emergency calls.

When will service be restored?

No word yet as to when service will be restored. AT&T has not immediately made a comment about the outage. The most reported cases of interrupted cellular service in Texas are Dallas, Houston and San Antonio.

AT&T outage map

AT&T allows users to sign up for text alert updates about outages, or you can check on outages with your mobile phone or internet here.

How to check for Verizon outages

Verizon requires customers to sign into their accounts to check outages, but you can also find troubleshooting info and check on the status of repair requests.

T-Mobile says they had no outages

Through a statement via email, T-Mobile said, "We did not experience an outage. Our network is operating normally. Down Detector is likely reflecting challenges our customers were having attempting to connect to users on other networks."

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: AT&T outage causing phones to be stuck on SOS only mode. What it means

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