In the early morning hours of February 22, America's three largest mobile phone carriers – with AT&T leading the pack in terms of getting hit the hardest – experienced mysterious outages that also affected 911 and other first-responder services.
The outage tracking website DownDetector showed major cell phone outages all across the country that also included prepaid carriers like Cricket, FirstNet, Boost Mobile, Consumer Cellular, U.S. Cellular and Straight Talk.
According to Insider Paper, AT&T saw its peak number of outages at around 4:30 a.m. EST with the other carriers reporting fewer outages around the same time.
"This outage is mostly said to be impacting Philadelphia, Chicago, Brooklyn, Houston, New York City, Dallas, Los Angeles, Spokane, San Ramon," the media outlet reported.
Many users reported having only "SOS" service appear on their iPhones, meaning their phones were no longer linked to a network, this despite claims by Apple that iPhone users can still make emergency calls with SOS available.
"While the SOS indication may sound alarming, it doesn't imply a national emergency or imminent danger," Insider Paper clarified.
"iPhone's SOS feature activates when your cellular connection is lost, limiting you to making only emergency calls or texts. Owners of iPhone 13 or earlier models won't see the SOS indicator; instead, they'll notice a 'No service' indication.
(Related: Consistent exposure to microwaves and cell phone radiation is linked to the proliferation of deadly free radicals called peroxynitrates that accumulate throughout the body.)
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Was it a cyber attack?
As of now, AT&T has not indicated what might have caused the sudden and unexpected outage. Lee McKnight, an associate professor in New York, said the most likely cause was "a cloud misconfiguration, which is a fancy word for saying human error."
"911 operators have warned that the outage has impacted their ability to take calls," further reported the DailyMail Online (United Kingdom).
Others speculated that perhaps the outage was caused by a cyberattack, seeing as how multiple carriers were affected all at once.
???UPDATE: WIDESPREAD CELL OUTAGE HITS THE U.S
In what could possibly be a cyber attack on the U.S, outages are being reported across multiple service providers including AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, and US Cellular.
Source: Downdetector https://t.co/TWZSnugiMF pic.twitter.com/irNlrOU5TC
— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) February 22, 2024
Other cities where mobile phone service disruptions were reported include Atlanta, Boston, Dallas, Honolulu, Houston, Los Angeles, Montreal, New York, San Francisco and Seattle.
Some sources are blaming solar flares for the disruption, but why, then, would they be localized to just these large cities? None of the affected carriers have yet to issue any kind of statement about the alleged cause.
According to local media reports in Atlanta, the outage is the second in a week to affect Verizon customers throughout the area.
In Orlando, Fla., a local Fox News affiliate reported that some of its field reporters had trouble using their mobile phones to make contact. In nearby Tampa, local residents reported not being able to use their phones starting as early as 2 am.
In New Orleans, some people had trouble making calls, though they were able to send text (SMS) messages.
"SMART: Self-monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology," commented someone about what so-called "smart" devices are really for.
"Communications is the first thing that will go down before we are attacked," speculated another.
"Big Brother is experimenting again," said another. "They're trying to figure out how to spread X over the phone before November."
"If it is terrorism, they will deny it," someone else wrote. "Probably just a prelude to what is coming."
"Cell phones represent terror," joked another.
More of the latest news about the scare of the day can be found at Chaos.news.
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