Wade4Wireless

AT&T Network Outage February 22, 2024


update 2/22/2024 PM – AT&T now says it was “caused by the application & execution of an incorrect process used as we were expanding our network” per https://twitter.com/ATTNEWS/status/1760838842322661545.

As you all know, AT&T had a major network outage on Feb 22nd. It started early in the work day. Unfortunately, we have few details on why or how it happened. It appears that FirstNet may have been affected as well since they ride on the AT&T network. 

Apparently, the screens show an SOS icon.

The network appears to be back up and working. 

I didn’t see or hear of anything official from AT&T Wireless. When that happens, I’ll update this blog. I would like to hear officially from AT&T what or who caused the outage.

What we know now:

  • AT&T had over 36K outages reports according to Down Detector and Fox New. Eventually Down Detector raised the number to over 70K complaints.
  • Central to Eastern markets affected.
  • Went down around…. some say as early as 12:46 AM ET while other say around 4AM ET.
  • Some say it came back around 1PM ET. AT&T said recovery happened as early as 11:15 AM ET.
  • Verizon and T-Mobile claim their networks were OK, only people calling AT&T mobile devices were affected. They got complaints, but said it was all people calling AT&T.
  • 911 from AT&T devices was affected.
  • FirstNet systems were affected.

Rumors:

  • Some say they could have been hacked.
  • Maybe a Cloud issue.
  • Maybe a network configuration issue.
  • Maybe someone just screwed up, human error.
  • Some are blaming the Sun’s Solar Flare activity, but to be honest, that would affect all the carriers, not just AT&T.
  • The latest report was a SIM Card registry database issue.
  • It seems coincidental that it happened right before the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. Most AT&T executives are probably already in Barcelona.

What we don’t know:

  • What AT&T thinks, Seriously, they didn’t release any updates about why or what happened.

Sources:

More:

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