HOUSTON — As AT&T users experience a nationwide outage for cellular service, there is a growing concern over being able to make emergency calls via the 911 system.
Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez said his office is aware of the outage and will continue to monitor the situation. He added that the 911 emergency dispatch center is fully operational.
At least 60,000 customers have reported issues with their network on the outage-tracking site DownDetector as of 8 a.m. Eastern, almost double the 35,000 reporting problems an hour earlier.
RELATED: What does SOS mode mean?
“Some of our customers are experiencing wireless service interruptions this morning. We are working urgently to restore service to them. We encourage the use of Wi-Fi calling until service is restored,” AT&T said in a statement to the Associated Press.
The sheriff said some may be able to utilize the SOS on their cell phones to contact 911. The Harris County 911 Center can also be reached at 713-221-6000.
Cricket Wireless had more than 13,000, the outage tracking website said Thursday. Verizon had more than 4,000 outages and T-Mobile had more than 1,900 outages. Boost Mobile had about 700 outages.
“Verizon’s network is operating normally. Some customers experienced issues this morning when calling or texting with customers served by another carrier. We are continuing to monitor the situation,” Verizon said.
T-Mobile said that it did not experience an outage.
“Our network is operating normally. Down Detector is likely reflecting challenges our customers were having attempting to connect to users on other networks,” T-Mobile said.
What is SOS mode?
SOS mode is simply a way for your iPhone to tell you that you don't have a proper cellular connection, meaning you're only able to call or text emergency services through the cellular network.
iPhone 14 or newer models also have satellite SOS capability, so you're able to call 911 even when outside of any cellular service range, unless you're some place where signal can't get out at all.
Android phones will also let you call 911 without service, although it's not called SOS mode.
How can I tell if my phone is in SOS mode?
The SOS icon will appear in the top right corner of an iPhone's screen when service is unavailable, where your cellular connection bars usually display
On an iPhone 13 or earlier, if you go out of range for any cellular service, the icon will swap to "No service" until you're back within range.