The American telecoms group AT&T invited its customers on Thursday morning to make their calls via wifi after interruptions in its mobile services were reported across the United States, but without giving an explanation on the causes of these disruptions.
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The US Cybersecurity Agency (CISA) “is aware of the reports and we are working closely with AT&T to understand the cause of this interruption and its consequences,” explained Eric Goldstein, a director of this organization.
“We are ready to offer any assistance that is necessary,” he continued.
A spokesperson for the telecoms group indicated early Thursday morning that “some” customers were experiencing “interruptions in mobile telephone service”. “We are working urgently to restore the service,” he added.
“We encourage (affected customers) to make calls via wifi until service is restored,” advised this spokesperson.
According to the monitoring site Downdetector, up to nearly 75,000 reports have been made about AT&T services in several major cities across the country (Houston, Chicago, Dallas, New York, Miami, Austin, Atlanta, etc.) .
A few hours later, the operator announced that “around three quarters of the network has been restored at this stage”.
“We are working as quickly as possible to restore service to remaining customers,” assured the spokesperson.
Several American media outlets indicated that telecom operators T-Mobile and Verizon were also suffering from disruptions, but at a much lower level than their competitor. DownDetector reported only a few thousand reports.
T-Mobile said it would not experience any disruptions Thursday morning.
“Our network is functioning normally. DownDetector probably reports the problems that our customers encounter when trying to reach subscribers of other networks,” the operator said in the middle of the day.
Verizon did not immediately respond.
On the New York Stock Exchange, AT&T shares lost 2.29% around 6:45 p.m. GMT.
