AT&T service restored after hours of outage

AT&T has fully restored cellphone service, several hours after its widespread outage that disrupted calls and text messages for more than 70,000 US users.

Based on an initial review, the carrier thinks the outage was likely caused by a process error — not a cyberattack, the wireless carrier said in a statement on its website.

In a statement Thursday afternoon, the FBI said the agency was in contact with AT&T regarding a network outage, reported Reuters and ABC News.

The network trouble started early Thursday.

AT&T has been grappling with interruptions to its service for more than 10 hours as the company’s 5G network covers around 290 million people across the USA.

However, the Federal Communications Commission said it was inspecting the incident.

The US security agency stated that they were working with AT&T to realize the reason.

The FBI and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) were investigating the AT&T outage, said White House spokesman John Kirby.

However, CISA is a unit of DHS.

Kirby said they are being told that AT&T has no reason to think this was a cyber or security incident.

The FCC was in touch with the company, added the spokesman.

However, AT&T refused to make any comment on the FCC’s investigation into the incident.

The company has yet to provide further details on the outage and the number of affected users.

According to tracking website Downdetector.com, the number of outage incidents to about 3,255 by around 2:47 pm ET (1947 GMT).

The FBI also said that its officials were in touch with the company about the outage.

According to posts on the X social media platform by government departments in several US cities, the outage affected people’s ability to reach emergency services by dialing 911.