More than 50,000 incidents were reported in the early morning hours, impacting emergency services.
Several U.S. cities are experiencing cell phone outages, with thousands of users reporting disruptions to the nation's major telecommunications services, including AT&T, Verizon and TMobile.
AT&T, the nation's largest mobile phone company, was reported to be the hardest hit early Thursday morning.
More than 50,000 incidents were reported around 7 a.m. ET (12 p.m. Japan time), according to data from the trouble tracking website Downdetector.com.
Cities affected included San Francisco, Houston, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York and Boston, according to the website.
AT&T acknowledges that some customers are experiencing wireless service interruptions. TMobile said there were no outages and the network was operating normally, but users were reporting issues.
For X, the San Francisco Fire Department said the power outage affected people's ability to contact emergency services.
“We are aware of an issue affecting AT&T Wireless customers' ability to make and receive all calls, including to the 911 emergency number,” the agency said in a statement.
It added: “We are actively involved and monitoring.”
The Flagler County Sheriff's Office in Florida also tweeted: “Text messages to 911 from affected AT&T users are currently being received. If you have an emergency and cannot dial out, please text your message to 911.”
UPDATE: Text messages to 911 from affected AT&T users are now being received. If you have an emergency and cannot dial out, please text 911. pic.twitter.com/VKabmSfyYx
— Flagler County Sheriff's Office (@FlaglerSheriff) February 22, 2024
The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department in North Carolina also said it was aware of the power outage, but that it “did not impede” its ability to receive emergency calls.
Several users complained to X about the outage, and some AT&T users reported that their iPhones remained in SOS mode due to loss of connectivity.
“#atoutage is impacting people's lives. My father is an Uber driver and won't be able to make a living until he gets cell phone service. Refund the people of @ATT Are you going to do that?” 1 user I have written.
Others questioned whether the failure was due to missed phone bill payments.