A worker climbs on a cellular communication tower in Oakland, California.
Justin Sullivan | Getty Images
A cellular outage early on Thursday hit thousands of AT&T users in the United States, disrupting calls and text messages as well as emergency services in major cities including San Francisco.
About 58,000 incidents were reported around noon ET, according to data from outage-tracking website Downdetector.com. AT&T has not said exactly how many customers were affected by Thursday’s outage and the cause was not immediately clear.
“Some of our customers are experiencing wireless service interruptions this morning,” AT&T said Thursday on a site it put up for updates to the situation. “Our network teams took immediate action and so far three-quarters of our network has been restored. We are working as quickly as possible to restore service to remaining customers.”
Phones affected by the outage have displayed zero service bars in the top right corner of their device or the letters SOS. Customers were still able to make calls by enabling Wi-Fi calling.
A spike in outages began around 4:00 a.m. ET and peaked at around 74,000 reported incidents at 8:30 a.m. ET, according to Downdetector.
Shares of AT&T were down about 2% Thursday morning following the outages.
The AT&T outage has impacted people’s ability to reach emergency services by dialing 911, a post on social media platform X from the San Francisco Fire Department said.
“We are aware of an issue impacting AT&T wireless customers from making and receiving any phone calls (including to 911),” the fire department said on the platform.
Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens said in a post on X that the city can receive and make outbound 911 calls but that AT&T customers in the area had reported issues.
“We have received calls from AT&T customers that their cellular phones are in SOS mode. Please direct all inquiries to restore service to AT&T,” Dickens said.
The Massachusetts State Police said that people were flooding their 911 center with calls trying to determine if the service works from their cell phones.
“Please do not do this. If you can successfully place a non-emergency call to another number via your cell service then your 911 service will also work,” the state police said in a post on X.
Users of Verizon and T-Mobile were reporting a few thousand outages each as of 10:00 a.m. ET, according to Downdetector.
These reports were likely due to calls made trying to connect with other networks, both companies said.
“Downdetector is likely reflecting challenges our customers were having attempting to connect to users on other networks,” T-Mobile said in an emailed statement.
– Reuters and CNBC’s Steven Kopack contributed to this report.
In this photo illustration, the logo of TikTok is displayed on a smartphone screen on April 5, 2025 in Shanghai, China.
Vcg | Visual China Group | Getty Images
President Donald Trump on Tuesday extended the deadline for ByteDance to divest TikTok’s U.S. business, which will be owned by an investor consortium that includes Oracle and Silver Lake, CNBC’s David Faber reported.
It’s the fourth time Trump has extended the deadline. The extension, as described in an executive order, precludes the Department of Justice from enforcing a national security law that would effectively ban TikTok in the U.S. until Dec. 16.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent revealed on Monday that a “framework deal” had been reached involving TikTok. Under the national security law, which would have come into effect on Wednesday, app store operators like Apple and Google and internet service providers would be penalized for providing services to TikTok’s U.S. operations if a deal was not reached.
Under the framework deal, about 80% of TikTok’s U.S. business would be owned by an investor consortium that includes Oracle, Silver Lake and Andreessen Horowitz, the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday reported. As part of the arrangement, existing U.S. users would need to shift to a new app, according to report.
Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping are expected on Friday to discuss the terms of the TikTok-related deal that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent revealed on Monday.
The deal, which is expected to close in the next 30 to 45 days, includes new investors, existing ByteDance investors and will result in Oracle maintaining its cloud computing agreement with TikTok, CNBC’s David Faber reported earlier on Tuesday.
Bessent said Tuesday during CNBC’s Squawk Box that Trump was willing to let TikTok “go dark,” which spurred China to agree to a deal. The Treasury Secretary said that the deal’s commercial terms had already been finalized “in essence” since March or April, but China put the deal on hold following Trump’s tough tariffs and trade policies.
“We were able to reach a series of agreements, mostly for things we will not be doing in the future that have no effect on our national security,” Bessent said Tuesday.
A senior White House official said in a statement that, “Any details of the TikTok framework are pure speculation unless they are announced by this administration.”
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella speaks at Microsoft Build AI Day in Jakarta, Indonesia, on April 30, 2024.
Adek Berry | AFP | Getty Images
LONDON — Microsoft said on Tuesday that it plans to invest $30 billion in the U.K. by 2028, as the company builds out its artificial intelligence infrastructure.
The investment includes an additional $15.5 billion in capital expansion and $15.1 billion in its U.K. operations, Microsoft said. The company said the investment would enable it to build the U.K.’s “largest supercomputer,” with more than 23,000 advanced graphics processing units, in partnership with Nscale, a British cloud computing firm.
The spending commitment comes as President Donald Trump embarks on a state visit to Britain. Trump arrived in the U.K. Tuesday evening and is set to be greeted at Windsor Castle on Wednesday by King Charles and Queen Camilla.
During his visit, all eyes are on U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who is under pressure to bring stability to the country after the exit of Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner over a house tax scandal and a major cabinet reshuffle.
“I haven’t always been optimistic every single day about the business climate in the U.K.,” Smith said. However, he added, “I am very encouraged by the steps that the government has taken over the last few years.”
“Just a few years ago, this kind of investment would have been inconceivable because of the regulatory climate then and because there just wasn’t the need or demand for this kind of large AI investment,” Smith said.
Starmer and Trump are expected to sign a new deal Wednesday “to unlock investment and collaboration in AI, Quantum, and Nuclear technologies,” the government said in a statement late Tuesday.
Waymo partners with Uber to bring robotaxi service to Atlanta and Austin.
Uber Technologies Inc.
Alphabet-owned Waymo obtained a permit to start testing its robotaxis at San Francisco International Airport, San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie and the company announced Tuesday.
Waymo will partner with the airport to roll out its commercial robotaxi service in phases, “beginning with employee testing soon ahead of welcoming Bay Area riders,” company spokesperson Chris Bonelli told CNBC.
That means the robotaxis will start with human drivers on board, ready to take control of the vehicles if needed, and eventually operate as a driverless ride-hail service.
Waymo is already operating its service in San Mateo County, where the airport is based, and in nearby San Francisco, but it does not yet have permission to ferry passengers to or from the airport.
In 2022, Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport gave Waymo permission to test and operate its service there, and earlier this month, Waymo secured a permit to begin testing at San Jose Mineta International Airport.
Last month, Lurie said Waymo could operate a limited passenger service on one of San Francisco’s main thoroughfares, Market Street, where such services had previously been restricted.
For its general robotaxi service, Waymo now operates in Phoenix, parts of the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, Austin and Atlanta.
Tesla began testing a robotaxi service in Austin in June, with human safety supervisors on board. The Elon Musk-led company is also in discussions with San Francisco Bay Area airports. Tesla has permission to operate a paid car service in San Francisco, but not to run a driverless ride-hailing business there.
Tesla does not currently sell vehicles that are safe to use without a person in the car, ready to take over steering or braking at any time.