AT&T acknowledged a nationwide outage affecting its United States subscribers, preventing them to make or receive wireless calls.
The carrier is working to fix the problem and has also suggested a possible solution. Rival T-Mobile, meanwhile, chimed in on the matter.
How Bad Is The AT&T Outage?
According to DownDetector.com, a website that monitors service outages across the United States, reports on AT&T problems peaked at nearly 7,000 on the evening of Nov. 15. A look at the outage map provided by the service showed reports coming from all over the country, including Houston, San Francisco, Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, Orlando, and Dallas.
The reports continue to come in through Twitter and other social media networks, forcing AT&T to acknowledge the nationwide outage.
"Please know that technicians are working to restore your services at this time. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and we appreciate your patience while we restore your services," AT&T said to disgruntled subscribers on Twitter.
There is no official reason released yet on what is preventing AT&T subscribers from making and receiving calls. The carrier also offered no estimate on when the service will be brought back to normal.
AT&T Subscribers, Try This
AT&T, meanwhile, offered a possible solution to the service outage while waiting for the carrier's technicians to fix the problem.
If you've experienced an issue when making wireless calls, please restart your device, this might be required multiple times- that should resolve the issue.
— AT&T (@ATT) November 16, 2017
The solution worked for some subscribers, while it did not for others. For affected users, it might be worth it to spend a few minutes in restarting smartphones several times to see if the suggested fix works. If restarting the device does not fix the problem, AT&T subscribers can choose to use the carrier's Wi-Fi calling service instead to make an outgoing call. However, the effectiveness of the method will be reduced if the person that the user will try to call is also an AT&T subscriber.
T-Mobile, a rival carrier of AT&T that will not let such an incident pass without getting a word in, offered its own solution to the problem:
The rates are unacceptable even if it was working, but that is a story for another day. We'll help you escape! https://t.co/QoxoxGa5yo *JPL — T-Mobile (@TMobile) November 16, 2017
AT&T subscribers who are thinking that this is the last straw for the carrier might do just that. T-Mobile has been fixated on stealing Verizon subscribers recently, but it will certainly welcome customers who are switching from other companies to the Un-Carrier.
