North Carolina residents struggling to communicate with their families in the wake of Hurricane Helene aren't the only Americans experiencing outages in cell phone service this week.
On September 30, Verizon customers began reporting service outages in major cities such as New York, Atlanta, Chicago, and Phoenix. Deadline. But the problems weren't limited to Verizon; AT&T and T-Mobile customers are also reporting connectivity issues, according to service outage tracking site Down Detector.
Verizon addressed the outage on social media and assured customers that they were working to restore service.
“We are aware of an issue affecting service for some customers. Our engineers are engaged and we are working quickly to identify and resolve the issue,” the company wrote to X.
We are aware of an issue affecting service for some customers. Our engineers step in and we work quickly to identify and resolve the issue.
— Verizon News (@VerizonNews) September 30, 2024
Meanwhile, AT&T claims its network is not down.
“We are not experiencing a nationwide outage,” AT&T said. “Our national network is operating normally. The Drop Detector likely reflects the difficulties our customers face when trying to connect to users on another network.”
We are not experiencing a nationwide outage. Our national network is operating normally. Down Detector likely reflects the difficulties our customers face when trying to connect to users on another network.
— AT&T News (@ATTNEWS) September 30, 2024
The outage comes on top of a lack of cellular service in North Carolina following Hurricane Helene. It is not yet known when cellphone service will be restored to some Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile customers in other markets.