AT&T restores nationwide outages, investigation into cyberattack begins

SEEKONK, R.I. (WLNE) — Federal agencies will investigate whether a nationwide cell service outage was caused by a cyberattack.

As of 3:26 p.m. on Thursday, AT&T told ABC 6 News all outages have been restored.

Reports of outages began coming in around 3:30 a.m. Thursday morning.

“I didn’t realize how much we relied on technology,” Fall River Resident Margaret Ourique said.

More than 50,000 AT&T customers woke up without phone service.

AT&T advised all customers earlier in the day to use Wi-Fi calling until service was restored.

Managers at several AT&T stores in the area said people have been coming in sporadically for help with their connection.

In New England during the height of the outage, Massachusetts state police urged people not to call 911 to test their phone service.

“I work as a visiting nurse, so I use my phone 24/7 to contact staff and patients and read emails, and I could not do any of that,” Ourique said. “As soon as I went to visit my first patient I could not even use my GPS. I had to try to use the navigation in my car which is not user friendly.”

Rhode Island State Police said they did not run into the issue.

Verizon and T-Mobile both told ABC News that their networks were not experiencing outages but customers may have experienced difficulty when contacting individuals affected by outages at other providers.