AT&T and Verizon customers experienced a disruption in their ability to make calls to contacts on other carriers on June 4. The issue began around 11 AM ET and reached its peak at approximately 5 PM ET, affecting thousands of subscribers. Reports of the problem came from various locations, including New York City, Chicago, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Indianapolis, and Cleveland. A smaller number of T-Mobile and Cricket Wireless users also reported connection problems.
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) acknowledged the issue and stated that it was aware of subscribers in multiple states being unable to make wireless calls. The FCC also mentioned that it was currently investigating the problem. After 7 PM ET, both Verizon and AT&T released statements denying a nationwide outage but acknowledging difficulties in calling or texting contacts on other carriers. Verizon reportedly stated that outage reports for its network came from people trying to call AT&T subscribers. However, neither company took responsibility for the issue, and the root cause remains unknown. Despite the disruption, AT&T assured CNN that 911 calls were still going through.
An hour later, AT&T confirmed that the issue had been resolved. The company stated that it worked with another carrier to find a solution, without explicitly naming Verizon, which was likely the other carrier involved since most affected customers were subscribers of AT&T and Verizon. This incident follows a major outage experienced by AT&T in February, which impacted over 70,000 subscribers’ cellular services and data connections. During that outage, customers reported difficulties in contacting 911, and Verizon and T-Mobile users were unable to reach friends with AT&T numbers.