AT&T says it has restored service after massive, nationwide outage

AT&T said its service is restored after a massive, nationwide outage on Thursday.

WRAL News on Thursday received dozens reports of customers with AT&T and other cell service providers reporting connectivity issues nationwide.

Nationwide, there were more than 70,000 reports of AT&T outages on Thursday morning. By 9 a.m., the real number was likely much higher. At 11 a.m., AT&T said service was restored to three-quarters of the network.

The cause of the outage was unclear, but AT&T released the following statement:

Many users reported issues with cell service specifically, with "SOS" appearing at the top of their phones, which indicates a phone can be used for emergency calls only.

"I have no data connection," said Kristen Bass, who lost cell service on Thursday. "It keeps telling me I'm not connected to the network and need to connect.

"Luckily, I have WiFi."

On Thursday, Heather Scott lost her AT&T cell service traveling from Atlanta to Raleigh-Durham International Airport.

"[I] went to the Delta app to get my boarding pass, had SOS and couldn't log in," Scott said.

WRAL News on Thursday morning received at least 15 emails about the AT&T issue and more calls.

Former wireless network engineer Pierce Gorman said we're lucky widespread outages like Thursday are rare.

"It is a large and very complex network, and I think that’s a testimony to the design work they do to make sure the networks are reliable and robust," Gorman said.

Verizon and T-Mobile users were also reporting issues on Thursday, with around 900 reports of issues from T-Mobile customers and 2,000 reports from Verizon customers.

People who need a way to communicate during the outage can use messaging apps like WhatsApp to text friends and family members using Wi-Fi.