AT&T outage: If your phone says SOS, this might be why (2024)

If you're an AT&T user and your phone was in SOS mode today, you're not alone.

The network went down in parts of the U.S., for both iPhone and Android users. This happened back in February (alongside several other networks), and it seems round two is occurring now.

What's going on?

More than a thousand AT&T users have reported outages in the last 24 hours. According to Downdetector, over 1,130 users have reported service issues as of 7am ET. Most have reported issues on their mobile phone (58 percent) while others have encountered problems with their landline internet (14 percent).

Some people have spotted their iPhones are in SOS mode.

(Disclosure: Downdetector is owned by Mashable's parent company, Ziff Davis.)

Where did this happen?

The outages occurred in Virginia and North Carolina, an AT&T spokesperson confirmed.

"We worked as quicklyas possible torestore service to some customers in thecoastal areas of Virginia and North Carolina whose service may have been affected this morning by an equipment failure," the spokesperson said. "We apologize for the inconvenience."

Some users reported issues three days ago, saying they weren't receiving mobile signal or internet services. This has picked up significantly today. Many users also took to X (formally Twitter) to vent about lost service – or reach out to AT&T to request help.

Tweet may have been deleted

Tweet may have been deleted

AT&T's Help account has been replying to these queries and complaints, asking users to share their ZIP codes or send them direct messages for further help.

Mashable will provide updates on this story as more information comes.

UPDATE: May. 22, 2024, 10:24 a.m. EDT This story has been updated to reflect the area impacted by the outage as confirmed by AT&T.