In a sigh of relief for millions of users affected by a widespread telecommunications glitch, AT&T has confirmed the resolution of a “nationwide issue” that had been hindering calls between carriers on Tuesday. The announcement comes after an intensive collaboration between AT&T and other carriers to identify and address the root cause of the problem.
In a statement released around 7:45 p.m., AT&T expressed gratitude for customers’ patience during the disruption, stating, “The interoperability issue between carriers has been resolved. We collaborated with the other carrier to find a solution and appreciate our customers’ patience during this period.”
Despite the disruption, certain critical services remained unaffected throughout the ordeal. Calls to 911 and within the same carrier network, such as AT&T to AT&T, continued to function normally. Additionally, text messaging services and the FirstNet wireless broadband network for first responders remained operational, offering a vital lifeline amid the connectivity challenges.
Earlier in the day, AT&T had acknowledged the issue and assured customers that it was actively working alongside Verizon to rectify the situation. While stressing that the problem was not a nationwide outage, AT&T clarified that it was a “nationwide issue that is affecting the ability of some customers to complete calls between carriers.
Verizon had similarly confirmed that its network was operating as usual but acknowledged that some customers, particularly in the Northeast and Midwest regions, were encountering difficulties when attempting to call or text users on different carrier networks.
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) had also taken note of the situation, announcing that it was investigating the reports of service disruptions affecting consumers in multiple states.
While the exact number of affected customers remained unspecified, numerous individuals took to social media platforms to express their frustrations and seek assistance from both AT&T and Verizon support channels. Complaints ranged from the inability to make outgoing calls to questioning the reliability of services given the ongoing disruptions.
This incident occurred just over three months after a widespread outage impacted AT&T customers, resulting in significant service disruptions. During that episode, approximately 50,000 outages were reported at one point, with AT&T attributing the issue to a process error.
Following Tuesday’s disruptions, monitoring services such as Downdetector observed a notable increase in reported outages for both AT&T and Verizon, further highlighting the scale and impact of the issue.
T-Mobile, while confirming that it was not experiencing an outage itself, acknowledged the potential impact on its customers attempting to connect to networks affected by the interoperability issues between other carriers.
As services return to normalcy and connectivity is restored for affected users, the incident underscores the importance of robust infrastructure and collaborative efforts among telecommunications providers to swiftly address and resolve such widespread disruptions in the future.
