Thousands of iPhone owners who use wireless carrier AT&T are unable to make calls, send messages, or use data as the company faces one of its worst outages in a long time.
As of 6:21 p.m. EDT, there were about 5,300 complaints on the outage monitoring website Downdetector.
The outage mainly affects the southeast, with iPhones switching to SOS mode, per The Mobile ReportThis does not mean that the problem only occurs on iOS.
Phones that support satellite connectivity, like the recently released Pixel 9, have switched to satellite mode. Some iPhones also display the satellite icon.
AT&T has confirmed the issue and said it was caused by a critical fault in a switching center. However, the lack of connectivity is not the only problem it has caused. Other issues that have cropped up include the inability to issue new SIM cards and service delays.
AT&T management is struggling to keep up with the volume of incoming calls, and many users have reported being given wait times of several hours.
This is a developing story…