A
pedestrian
walks
in
front
of
an
AT&T
location
in
New
York.
Scott
Mlyn
|
CNBC
The
CEO
of
AT&T
on
Sunday
apologized
for
the
widespread
cellular
outage
that
knocked
out
service
for
thousands
of
customers,
saying
some
accounts
will
receive
credits
to
compensate
for
the
incident.
“For
the
portion
of
consumer
and
small
business
customers
most
impacted
by
the
outage,
we
are
automatically
applying
an
account
credit
to
compensate
them
for
the
inconvenience
they
experienced,”
Chief
Executive
John
Stankey
wrote
in
a
letter
to
employees.
“We
all
know
that
our
customers
receive
tremendous
value
and
convenience
for
the
nominal
daily
cost
of
our
service,
and
outages
sometimes
have
outsized
impacts
on
some
subscribers
that
may
be
greater
than
the
face
value
of
the
credit.
For
that
reason,
I
believe
that
crediting
those
customers
for
essentially
a
full
day
of
service
is
the
right
thing
to
do,”
he
continued. “Despite
that
impact
to
the
business,
I
believe
this
approach
is
fully
manageable
while
achieving
the
2024
business
objectives
we
have
set
for
ourselves
and
our
stated
financial
guidance.”
Impacted
customers
who
prepay
for
their
service
will
have
“options”
available
to
them
and
the
company
is
working
with
its
mid-market
and
enterprise
customers
to
address
their
concerns,
Stankey
said.
Early
Thursday,
tens
of
thousands
of
AT&T
customers
across
the
U.S.
reported
widespread
service
outages
and
were
unable
to
use
their
phones
without
access
to
WiFi.
A
spike
in
outages
began
around
4
a.m.
ET
and
peaked
at
around
74,000
reported
incidents
at
8:30
a.m.
ET,
according
to
Downdetector.
The
outage
raised
concerns
that
the
company
had
potentially
been
hit
with
a
cyberattack
but
an
initial
review
of
the
incident
found
it
was
caused
by
“the
application
and
execution
of
an
incorrect
process
used
while
working
to
expand
our
network,”
Stankey
said.
“Teams
worked
hard
to
successfully
normalize
the
network
by
around
noon
CT.
No
matter
the
timing,
one
thing
is
clear
—
we
let
down
many
of
our
customers,
including
many
of
you
and
your
families.
For
that,
we
apologize,”
he
said.
“These
challenges
provide
opportunities
to
identify
key
learnings
that
will
make
us
better,
and
I
can
tell
you
that
we
have
already
implemented
changes
to
prevent
what
happened
on
Thursday.”
Once
the
company
realized
there
was
an
outage,
it
prioritized
restoring
service
to
first
responders
and
reconnected
remaining
customers
throughout
the
day. Stankey
thanked
staff
for
their
efforts
in
handling
customer
complaints,
communicating
information
about
the
outage
and
restoring
service.
