Colorado cellular outages reported from AT&T, Cricket Wireless, more

By MICHELLE CHAPMAN (AP Business Writer)

A number of Americans are dealing with cellular outages on AT&T, Cricket Wireless, Verizon, T-Mobile and other service providers, according to data from Downdetector. AT&T, who was the hardest hit, is actively working to restore service to all of its customers.

AT&T had more than 58,000 outages around noon ET, in locations including Houston, Atlanta and Chicago. The outages, which began at approximately 3:30 a.m. ET, peaked at around 73,000 reported incidents. The carrier has more than 240 million subscribers, the country’s largest.

“Some of our customers are experiencing wireless service interruptions this morning. Our network teams took immediate action and so far three-quarters of our network has been restored. We are working as quickly as possible to restore service to remaining customers,” AT&T and Cricket said in a statement.

Cricket Wireless, which is owned by AT&T, had more than 9,000 outages, Downdetector said Thursday.

While some 911 call centers across the country are reporting disruptions, Denver Department of Public Safety spokesperson Kelly Jacobs said they are not aware of any disruptions to 911 call centers in Colorado.

Denver’s 911 service is working as normal, Jacobs said, and Aurora Police Department spokesperson Matthew Longshore also confirmed the police department unaware of any problems with their 911 service.

A Larimer County Sheriff’s Office spokesperson said some of their residents experienced not being able to reach 911 by calling, but it was an issue on the callers’ sides, not the 911 center. Larimer County is not experiencing any direct disruptions either.

The Larimer County spokesperson said texting 911 is still an option that works to connect people needing 911 services if they are unable to call.

Verizon had more than 2,000 outages and T-Mobile had more than 1,400 outages. Boost Mobile had about 700 outages.

“Verizon’s network is operating normally. Some customers experienced issues this morning when calling or texting with customers served by another carrier. We are continuing to monitor the situation,” Verizon said.

T-Mobile said that it 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,” T-Mobile said.

Some iPhone users have seen SOS messages displayed in the status bar on their cellphones. The message indicates that the device is having trouble connecting to their cellular provider’s network, but it can make emergency calls through other carrier networks, according to Apple Support.

So far, no reason has been given for the outages. But Lee McKnight, an associate professor in the iSchool at Syracuse University, believes the most likely cause of the outage is a cloud misconfiguration, or human error.

“A possible but far less likely outcome is an intentional malicious hack of ATT’s network, but the diffuse pattern of outages across the country suggests something more fundamental,” McKnight said in an emailed statement.

For those still impacted by the outage, Alexander Wyglinski, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, says that there is a possible workaround.

“A lot of cell phones do Wi-Fi calling. So, as a potential backup, if you are close to a wi-fi access point, you may be able to use that if you are affected by the network outage,” he said in an emailed statement.

Denver Post reporter Jacob Factor contributed to this report.

By MICHELLE CHAPMAN (AP Business Writer)

A number of Americans are dealing with cellular outages on AT&T, Cricket Wireless, Verizon, T-Mobile and other service providers, according to data from Downdetector. AT&T, who was the hardest hit, is actively working to restore service to all of its customers.

AT&T had more than 58,000 outages around noon ET, in locations including Houston, Atlanta and Chicago. The outages, which began at approximately 3:30 a.m. ET, peaked at around 73,000 reported incidents. The carrier has more than 240 million subscribers, the country’s largest.

“Some of our customers are experiencing wireless service interruptions this morning. Our network teams took immediate action and so far three-quarters of our network has been restored. We are working as quickly as possible to restore service to remaining customers,” AT&T and Cricket said in a statement.

Cricket Wireless, which is owned by AT&T, had more than 9,000 outages, Downdetector said Thursday.

While some 911 call centers across the country are reporting disruptions, Denver Department of Public Safety spokesperson Kelly Jacobs said they are not aware of any disruptions to 911 call centers in Colorado.

Denver’s 911 service is working as normal, Jacobs said, and Aurora Police Department spokesperson Matthew Longshore also confirmed the police department unaware of any problems with their 911 service.

A Larimer County Sheriff’s Office spokesperson said some of their residents experienced not being able to reach 911 by calling, but it was an issue on the callers’ sides, not the 911 center. Larimer County is not experiencing any direct disruptions either.

The Larimer County spokesperson said texting 911 is still an option that works to connect people needing 911 services if they are unable to call.

Verizon had more than 2,000 outages and T-Mobile had more than 1,400 outages. Boost Mobile had about 700 outages.

“Verizon’s network is operating normally. Some customers experienced issues this morning when calling or texting with customers served by another carrier. We are continuing to monitor the situation,” Verizon said.

T-Mobile said that it 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,” T-Mobile said.

Some iPhone users have seen SOS messages displayed in the status bar on their cellphones. The message indicates that the device is having trouble connecting to their cellular provider’s network, but it can make emergency calls through other carrier networks, according to Apple Support.

So far, no reason has been given for the outages. But Lee McKnight, an associate professor in the iSchool at Syracuse University, believes the most likely cause of the outage is a cloud misconfiguration, or human error.

“A possible but far less likely outcome is an intentional malicious hack of ATT’s network, but the diffuse pattern of outages across the country suggests something more fundamental,” McKnight said in an emailed statement.

For those still impacted by the outage, Alexander Wyglinski, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, says that there is a possible workaround.

“A lot of cell phones do Wi-Fi calling. So, as a potential backup, if you are close to a wi-fi access point, you may be able to use that if you are affected by the network outage,” he said in an emailed statement.

Denver Post reporter Jacob Factor contributed to this report.