Sweeping AT&T outage leads customers across the US to wake up without cellphone service

• AT&T is experiencing a cell service outage in the US.
• A reason for the outage isn't clear.
• AT&T recommended impacted customers use Wi-Fi calling in the meantime.

Many AT&T users woke up on Thursday morning without cell service.

Their phone showed zero bars of service or displayed that it was in SOS Mode.

That's because the network is experiencing a widespread outage across the US that impacted tens of thousands of people, according to service reports.

AT&T confirmed the outage to Business Insider, but didn't provide an ETA for service being restored or a reason for the issue.

"Some of our customers are experiencing wireless service interruptions this morning," AT&T said in a statement to BI. "We are working urgently to restore service to them.  We encourage the use of Wi-Fi calling until service is restored."

Reports of service issues spiked on the outage-reporting website DownDetector around 8 a.m. ET for AT&T, which saw close to 74,000 reports.

The outage appears to also be leading to issues with customers with other cell providers being unable to reach people with AT&T. Outage reports for Verizon around the same time reached 4,336 and T-Mobile saw just over 2,000, but a spokesperson at Verizon, Lauren Schulz, said there were no issues with Verizon's service itself.

"Verizon's network is operating normally," Schulz said. "Some customers experienced issues this morning when calling or texting with customers served by another carrier. We are continuing to monitor the situation."

T-Mobile shared a similar statement with BI and said a rise in outage reports likely reflects challenges customers were having to connect to users on other networks.

Frustrated AT&T customers took to social media to complain to the company — or share memes about the outage.

The company's account on X, formerly Twitter, was replying to customers on Thursday morning requesting to move the conversation to DM.

Government services have also been impacted by the outage. Emergency service departments around the country, like in San Francisco, have warned residents about the outage and advised that they use a landline.

New York Police Department said that they were unable to make calls or emails on AT&T phones unless they were connected to Wi-Fi, according to a CNN report on the outage.

This is a developing story.