FCC investigating AT&T outage

The Federal Communication Commission’s Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau launched an investigation on Thursday into the nationwide AT&T network outage earlier that day. National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security are also investigating the outage, according to reporting by Reuters.

AT&T boasts over 240 million users nationwide, making it the largest network provider in the United States. Over 70,000 AT&T network outages were reported to Downdetector by late Thursday morning, with most issues reported near Houston, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, and Atlanta. AT&T-owned Cricket also experiences mass outages. Both AT&T and Cricket said they restored service to all customers Thursday afternoon.

Have they said what caused the outage? AT&T released an update on Thursday night, identifying the cause of the outage as “the application and execution of an incorrect process” and not a cyber attack.