AT&T iPhone owners suffering from connectivity issues on LTE

Posted:
in iPhone edited November 2017
AT&T has confirmed reports of outages across its network in the U.S., and has instructed users to restart their devices to restore connectivity.




Reports had been circulating since 6:00 p.m. Eastern time regarding potential outages. At the time, device restarts weren't sufficient to restore connectivity.

AT&T confirmed the outage to AppleInsider just before 9:00 p.m. The carrier advised users to restart devices -- but social media reports suggest that it may not rectify the issue in every case.

Thanks for reaching out and making sure we're aware of your wireless service issues. If you're currently experiencing issue when making wireless calls, please restart your device - that should resolve the issue. Thanks for your patience & understanding. We're here for you! ^NdyE

-- AT&T (@ATT)


Follow-on advice issued by AT&T suggests that multiple resets may be required to restore service.

If you've experienced an issue when making wireless calls, please restart your device, this might be required multiple times- that should resolve the issue.

-- AT&T (@ATT)


Wi-Fi calling is unaffected by the outage, AppleInsider has also learned that older iPhones limited to 3G networks are also unaffected. Outages do not appear to be limited to any geographical area.
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 25
    I restarted twice.

    My first restart was with wifi connected. Fail.

    I turned off wifi. My second restart worked. 
    ktappewelshdog
  • Reply 2 of 25

    Has anyone looked at the stats on DownDetector? Looks like it wasn't just AT&T that had something happen...

    At almost EXACTLY the same time, Google, Verizon, Cricket Wireless, T-Mobile, Sprint, Yahoo, US Cellular, all seem to have spiked! AT&T was the worst hit, but something tells me this wasn't isolated to them...

    Google Drive seems to have had the WORST outage reports so far on that service reporter!

    pscooter63watto_cobrachiacornchip
  • Reply 3 of 25
    radarthekatradarthekat Posts: 3,842moderator
    Is this only iPhones? AT&T and others (see Magman’s comment, above) owes an explanation as to what they did to create this iPhone-specific situation. 
    watto_cobrajahblade
  • Reply 4 of 25
    Mike WuertheleMike Wuerthele Posts: 6,858administrator
    Is this only iPhones? AT&T and others (see Magman’s comment, above) owes an explanation as to what they did to create this iPhone-specific situation. 
    According to our data, iPhones seem the most profoundly affected, but I'm not sure yet if that's an anomaly of the locations affected or some other factor.
    radarthekatracerhomiewatto_cobrajahblade
  • Reply 5 of 25
    Ok. Just got off the phone with AppleCare. Here is the fix:

    1.  Go to Settings -> Cellular -> Cellular Data Options -> Enable LTE
    2.  Change to “Data only”

    That’s it. 
    Soliwatto_cobraJWSCsans
  • Reply 6 of 25
    This latest Carrier 'Connectivity Hiccup' is much more wide-spread and disruptive than they are admitting to.
    watto_cobrajahblade
  • Reply 7 of 25
    Oh you were referring specifically to today? I thought you meant in general...like since I owned my first LTE iPhone back in 2014. AT&T LTE speed in Orlando is awful in comparison to other cities I’ve traveled to and spotty would be a generous word. 1 mostly unfunctional bar in my major places of the city and I feel like I have to toggle airplane mode on and off a lot because the phone still shows connectivity but doesn’t do anything. It may have been fast years ago but LTE here is congested and feels more like 3G.
  • Reply 8 of 25
    SoliSoli Posts: 10,035member
    AT&TennaGate? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 


    coachbonk said:
    Ok. Just got off the phone with AppleCare. Here is the fix:

    1.  Go to Settings -> Cellular -> Cellular Data Options -> Enable LTE
    2.  Change to “Data only”

    That’s it. 
    I gave you a +1 for Informative, but I'm surprised that people don't know this. Every time there are a massive amount of people in a small area I turn it off because 3G ends up being faster than LTE when the spectrum is saturated by thousands of iPhones on LTE in a small
    watto_cobrajahbladeRayz2016chia
  • Reply 9 of 25
    What a mess. I have spent much time this evening on this, newest in a long list of ATT debacles. Finally with much effort, and many failed calls , live customer service messaging fails and eventually 30 minutes on hold, I received a worthwhile fix on my IPhone X Cellular/Wireless problem. The fix, in my case, involved disabling the PUK code and  a hard restart of the phone. 

    I detest this company, the unreasonable rates they extract from clients and the customer service black hole one often falls into attempting to rectify their f*c” ups and crashes. Oh how I wish Apple could gracefully deliver us all the way through the miasma of the wireless/internet/ monopoly on our society. These sort of recurring  problems should be legislated out of existence with worthy monetary and regulatory sanctions against these failing behemoths until they can be relied on in a failsafe manner to carry out the electronic communication needs of the populace they scavenge. 
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 10 of 25
    welshdogwelshdog Posts: 1,897member
    Wasn't there some sort of big Google outage last week? Again this week, Google, AT&T and almost every other big Internet company have outages. Is the net under some new sort of attack?  Are any of the affected companies talking about what has happened? The extent of today's outages is concerning.
    Solimagman1979watto_cobrajahblade
  • Reply 11 of 25
    bluefire1bluefire1 Posts: 1,301member
    I give AT&T full credit for doing what Verizon refused to do: Agreed to make the original iPhone available on Apple's terms.
    That said, there's no carrier as excellent as Verizon.
    watto_cobraredgeminipachia
  • Reply 12 of 25
    I reset the connection 10-20 times a day with Sprint.  It was considered normal...

    The solution was switching to T-mobile.
    mike1cornchip
  • Reply 13 of 25
    So funny ... because honestly I have had to do this a few times the past few weeks. I was on LTE a couple times in downtown DC and it was not working. I had to turn off cellular and turn it back on. This makes me wonder if it’s been happening longer but now it was massive outage. 
  • Reply 14 of 25
    This one hit me last night.   Took three restarts to get it going again.  None of the other iPhones in the house were affected.  Mine is the only 7.
  • Reply 15 of 25
    AT&T....the world's largest virus!
  • Reply 16 of 25
    @Apple Jockey -- if you "detest" AT&T so much, why don't you just switch to a "better" carrier and quit crying? "These sort of recurring problems"? When was the last time there was a nationwide outage? Sometimes things happen. Nothing is perfect, is it? Is there anything in this world that is perfect? As long as there are humans, there will be errors. I would think you would know this already. Glad your iPhone is working. It must be your entire life.
    mike1chianetmage
  • Reply 17 of 25
    dcgoodcgoo Posts: 280member
    I detest this company, the unreasonable rates they extract from clients and the customer service black hole one often falls into attempting to rectify their f*c” ups and crashes. Oh how I wish Apple could gracefully deliver us all the way through the miasma of the wireless/internet/ monopoly on our society. These sort of recurring  problems should be legislated out of existence with worthy monetary and regulatory sanctions against these failing behemoths until they can be relied on in a failsafe manner to carry out the electronic communication needs of the populace they scavenge. 
    AT&T is hardly a monopoly.  There are at least 3 other companies you could move to, not counting the regional players, let alone dozens of resellers and MVNOs.  No question that AT&T had a bad day.  But that could happen to any carrier on any particular day.  If you do not like the carrier that YOU chose, you should move to a different one.  Really easy to do.
    mike1chianetmage
  • Reply 18 of 25
    neilmneilm Posts: 985member
    The fix, in my case, involved disabling the PUK code and  a hard restart of the phone.
    What the PUK is that?
    Solicornchip
  • Reply 19 of 25
    mike1mike1 Posts: 3,275member
    bluefire1 said:
    I give AT&T full credit for doing what Verizon refused to do: Agreed to make the original iPhone available on Apple's terms.
    That said, there's no carrier as excellent as Verizon.
    Depends where you live/work.
  • Reply 20 of 25
    Have had lots of iPhone 6s users in the last 48 hours have this problem and seems changing the Cellular Data to Data Only and a full restart has fixed the problem with connection to AT&T for now.
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