Thousands of AT&T customers, including those in the Charlottesville area, were without cell service Thursday morning and early afternoon as the telecommunications company experienced a nationwide outage.
AT&T users reported trouble with sending text messages and making calls, including dialing 911.
The Charlottesville-UVa-Albemarle Emergency Communications Center urged AT&T customers to use landlines or Wi-Fi to make emergency calls if they were experiencing difficulties with cellular service.
Josh Powell, deputy director of support services with the center, told The Daily Progress that he did not have an exact number of individuals affected by the outage. However, he did say that all of the emergency center’s systems remained operational throughout the outage.
AT&T customers nationwide began reporting service interruptions around 3:30 a.m. Thursday. The total number of customers nationwide who reported they were without service jumped to 73,000 by 10 a.m. In the Charlottesville area, the number of self-reported cases was 89.
The company said in a statement it was “working as quickly as possible to restore service.” By 11:30 a.m., there were 45 AT&T customers in the Charlottesville area who said they were without service. By noon, that number had dropped to just nine.
AT&T did not immediately provide a reason for the outage, but said it was looking into it as it worked to restore service.
Powell said the emergency communications center receives and places anywhere from 500 to 700 telephone calls daily, between 911 and nonemergency calls.
Powell told The Daily Progress that AT&T had fully restored service in the Charlottesville area by 3:30 p.m. Thursday.
Source: www.dailyprogress.com
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