Why does my phone say SOS? Nationwide AT&T outage sparks 911 fears as dispatch centers report widespread failures

A nationwide AT&T outage has prompted users across the United States to dial 911, as dispatch centers are reporting widespread failures.

The outage seemed to have begun Tuesday afternoon, with a spike in reports at around 6pm and 9pm, according to Down Detector - a website that monitors outages.   

The states that seem to be the most affected so far are California, Texas, Alabama, Kentucky, Ohio, Florida, and Georgia - though more are starting to report problems, Nick Sotor said. 

AT&T blamed the issue on a critical failure at one of its switching center, which has resulted in a cascade of problems - including service delays and a complete loss of network connectivity, according to The Mobile Report. 

The issue is primarily affecting iPhone users, and has even affected emergency services, with officials in Seminole County, Florida urging those with an issue to contact its non-emergency line. 

Many customers have since turned to X to share their frustrations with the hours-long outage, as they seek answers from the phone company.

'Nice of AT&T to have a national mobile outage with zero public acknowledgement,' one user wrote.

'Just thousands wondering why they’re in SOS mode with “no outage in their area”. Ridiculous company gets hacked, then a massive national outage and the hits just keep coming,' he said, urging the Federal Communications Commission to take action. 

'AT&T pisses me off with all these outages. It’s no reason why I [can't] be out and about and my phone says SOS. Like wtf,' another wrote.

When customers were fortunate enough to get through to AT&T support, the company acknowledged there is an outage but offered little reassurance. 

There is currently no work around and the company has not provided an estimated time that the issue may be resolved.

Making matters worse, most of the company's senior technical support staff have gone home from their shifts for the day - leaving the issue unresolved, according to The Mobile Report. 

Still, AT&T officials say they are working to fix the issue - which they insist is only affecting a 'limited number of our customers.

'We are working to address a software issue that may affect the ability of a limited number of our customers to connect to our wireless network,' a spokesperson told DailyMail.com.

'Keeping our customers connected is our highest priority, so we appreciate their patience as we work to resolve this issue.'

By around 11.20pm EST a spokesperson for the company contacted DailyMail.com with an update about the situation.

'We’ve resolved a software issue that disrupted the ability of a limited number of our customers to connect to our wireless network,' a spokesperson said.

'We apologize for the inconvenience and we appreciate our customers’ patience as we worked to resolve this issue.' 

The outage came the same day the FCC announced that AT&T would pay a $950,000 fine for failing to notify call centers about a similar outage in 2023 that affected police stations in Illinois, Kansas, Texas and Wisconsin.