Thousands Without AT&T Wireless Service In US

New York, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 23rd Feb, 2024) Thousands of AT&T customers in the United States lost cell phone service Thursday, the company confirmed, with US officials saying there was no immediate indication of any cybersecurity attack.

AT&T had succeeded by midday in reducing the number of customers affected by the outage, while the company worked with US cybersecurity officials to probe the issue.

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency "is aware of the reports and we are working closely with AT&T to understand the cause of the outage and its impacts, and stand ready to offer any assistance needed," said CISA Executive Assistant Director for Cybersecurity Eric Goldstein.

National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told a White House briefing that "right now, we're being told that AT&T has no reason to think that this was a cyber security incident."

Nearly 75,000 AT&T customers were without service during the peak of the outage, according to tracking website Downdetector.

The issue was clustered in several cities, including Dallas, Houston, Chicago, Atlanta and Miami, the website said.

By 1845 GMT, the number had fallen to under 5,000 according to the website.

"Some of our customers are experiencing wireless service interruptions this morning," an AT&T spokesperson said.

"Our network teams took immediate action and so far about three-quarters of our network has been restored. We are working as quickly as possible to restore service to remaining customers."

Downdetector additionally indicated that users on T-Mobile, Verizon and cricket Wireless were reporting a smaller number of outages.

However, T-Mobile said in a statement that its network was "operating normally" and that the reports were likely "reflecting challenges our customers were having attempting to connect to users on other networks."

Shares of AT&T fell 2.2 percent in afternoon trading.