AT&T fixed a software issue that disconnected many customers for a few hours

AT&T was experiencing some issues Tuesday night that left customers seeing “SOS” instead of their usual bars of service.

“We’ve resolved a software issue that disrupted the ability of a limited number of our customers to connect to our wireless network. We apologize for the inconvenience and we appreciate our customers’ patience as we worked to resolve this issue,” said AT&T spokesperson Jim Kimberly in a statement sent to The Verge.

The number of problem reports tracked by Downdetector started rising after 4PM ET before finally fading out closer to midnight on the East Coast.

Many customers disconnected by the problem were tweeting directly at AT&T’s Help account on X, reporting issues like being stuck in SOS or having no phone service.

Kimberly also said that an explanation posted by The Mobile Report was inaccurate. That outlet said AT&T found internally that a failure at a switching center “has resulted in a cascade of problems, including service delays, the inability to provision new SIM cards, and, for many, a complete loss of network connectivity” that may primarily affect iPhones and other Apple devices.

Users on Reddit also reported service issues on some Android devices.

This outage happened just one day after AT&T announced it would pay $950,000 to settle an FCC investigation over a 911 outage in August 2023 and just after AT&T reported a work stoppage by the Communications Workers of America in the Southeast during negotiations.

Update, August 28th: Added statement from AT&T spokesperson noting the issue appears to be resolved.