AT&T said the outage was caused by “an incorrect process” as they were expanding their network. It was “not a cyber attack,” AT&T said.
For many, Thursday’s cell phone outage served as a wake-up call about how dependent people can be on their phones to do just about everything.
For around 11 hours, AT&T cell phone service was disrupted in major cities across the United States. Panic erupted for thousands of individuals, businesses and a whole culture that has come to rely on cell phones.
Angry customers besieged an AT&T store in Lake City, Florida.
“I had a job interview this morning at 9. You think they’ll fix that problem for me,” one customer said.
In San Francisco, the fire department told people, “If you cannot get through to 911 please try calling from a landline.”
AT&T said the outage was caused by “an incorrect process” as they were expanding their network. “Not a cyber attack,” it said.
Tech expert Steve Greenberg tells Inside Edition what to do if your phone line is out.
“If you and your spouse for example are on different phone services, well you just use your spouse's phone if it’s really an emergency,” Greenburg says. “Other than that, the other choice is using Wi-Fi. If you have an app like WhatsApp, you can then go on Wi-Fi and make a call that way.”
Only about 25% of homes still have landline phones.
The Department of Homeland Security and the FBI are investigating what caused the outage.
