UPDATE The FCC opened a formal investigation into last month’s nationwide AT&T wireless network outage, according to The Washington Post. The outage left many AT&T customers without cell phone service for much of the morning and early afternoon on February 22, with outage reports starting around 3:30 a.m. Eastern time and resolving by 3 p.m. that afternoon.
The carrier attributed the outage to a technical error while carrying out a network expansion, Inside Towers reported. It involved a software update that went awry, two sources told ABC News at the time.
The Commission previously said it was looking into the issue. So too, are the FBI, Department of Homeland Security and the New York Attorney General’s office. The Commission opening a formal investigation is significant. As a next step in the inquiry, the agency has requested in-depth information from AT&T concerning the cause, effect and corporate response to the incident, according to an agency spokesman. “The FCC is carrying out a thorough investigation into a nationwide outage of the AT&T network that affected millions of consumers and disrupted access to lifesaving communications,” the spokesman told The Washington Post.
In past investigations of wireless network outages, the agency has requested information such as the number of customers affected, the root cause and steps taken to restore service.
An AT&T spokesperson did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The carrier company apologized for the outage, saying, “Keeping our customers connected remains our top priority, and we are taking steps to ensure our customers do not experience this again in the future.”
It remains unclear why the network outage persisted for so long. The carrier has not said how many of its roughly 87 million postpaid wireless customers were affected. An estimated 1.7 million people reported they had lost service to the outage-tracking site Downdetector, and the FCC cited “millions” of people left without service.
By Leslie Stimson, Inside Towers Washington Bureau Chief
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