ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — AT&T said Thursday that all of its customers affected by a nationwide service outage have cell service again, after hours without the ability to place calls, send texts or access the internet without Wi-Fi.
“We have restored wireless service to all our affected customers," AT&T said in a statement. "We sincerely apologize to them. Keeping our customers connected remains our top priority, and we are taking steps to ensure our customers do not experience this again in the future.”
The statement was issued just before 3:30 p.m. — nearly 12 hours after customers first began reporting issues.
Outage reports began increasing around 4 a.m. Eastern time, according to user-generated reports on Downdetector. Some of the most reported locations include Los Angeles, Dallas, Atlanta and Chicago.
More than 73,000 outage reports were received as of 8 a.m. — and the number has dwindled since the peak.
"We are aware of an outage currently impacting our Mobility users and are working to resolve it ASAP," the company wrote earlier on its community forum page.
T-Mobile and Verizon users say they are having issues, as well, but the number of reports on Downdector is much lower than AT&T's problems. Both companies said in their statements they didn't experience 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 added: "Our network is operating normally. Down Detector is likely reflecting challenges our customers were having attempting to connect to users on other networks."
People on the social media service X have complained that their phones have been showing "SOS," which indicates their devices aren't connected to a cell phone network. Still, according to an Apple support document, people can place an emergency call.
A handful of Florida sheriff's offices, including Flagler and Highlands counties, advised people of the outage that could affect 911 operations.
TEGNA reporting contributed to this story.