According to AT&T, the extended interruption of service to its American mobile network on Thursday was likely caused by a technical mistake, rather than a deliberate attack.

The outage knocked out cellphone service for thousands of its users across the U.S. starting early Thursday before it was restored.

AT&T attributed the occurrence to a coding error, without providing further details.

“After conducting an initial review, we have determined that the outage experienced today was a result of an incorrect process being used during our network expansion, rather than a cyber attack. This determination was made by our company, headquartered in Dallas.”

Downdetector, a tracker for service disruptions, reported that there were approximately 73,000 incidents of outages starting at 3:30 a.m. ET. AT&T, the biggest carrier in the country with over 240 million subscribers, experienced more than 58,000 outages by noon ET in cities like Houston, Atlanta, and Chicago.

By 9 p.m. Eastern Time, the number of reports on AT&T’s network had dropped below 1,000.

AT&T’s subsidiary Cricket Wireless experienced over 9,000 outages at a certain time, but the number of reports decreased later in the afternoon. Customers of other carriers such as Verizon and T-Mobile also reported issues, but those companies stated that their networks were functioning properly and the problems were most likely caused by attempts to connect with AT&T users.

During the period of service disruption, certain users of iPhones observed SOS notifications appearing on their phone’s status bar. This message serves as an indication that the device is experiencing difficulties in establishing a connection with their designated cellular service provider. However, according to Apple Support, emergency calls can still be made using other network carriers.

John Kirby, spokesman for the National Security Council, stated that the Federal Communications Commission reached out to AT&T regarding the service disruption. The Department of Homeland Security and FBI are also investigating the situation.

The FBI confirmed that they had contacted AT&T. They stated that if they discover any harmful actions, they will take appropriate action.

The interruption also sparked worries among lawmakers on Capitol Hill.

“We are currently investigating the cause of today’s issue in order to fully comprehend the situation and determine measures to prevent similar incidents from happening in the future,” stated Cathy McMorris Rodgers, a Republican from Washington and chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, along with Bob Latta, a Republican from Ohio and chair of the Communications and Technology Subcommittee.

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Reporters from the Associated Press, including Zeke Miller, Lindsay Whitehurst, and Seung Min Kim in Washington, D.C., contributed to this article.

Source: wral.com