Calls and data hit ATT users in SF

(Update with official response) AT&T subscribers in San Francisco and the Bay Area have been reporting major service issues affecting their phones on Friday. The outages have triggered an above-average number of failed calls but appear to have rendered data completely inoperable for most customers. While the errors depend on the device, some have encountered errors trying to "activate" the data network in the region.

The carrier has been contacted for comment but as of this writing hadn't provided an explanation of the issue or an expected time of repair.

The outage has occurred just days after AT&T's wireless chief Ralph de la Vega touted ongoing network improvements that, among other upgrades, have included moving San Francisco to the higher-capacity 850MHz band as well as adding new cell sites and infrastructure to cope with the higher demand created by iPhones and other data-heavy devices.

Update: While no formal response is yet available, AT&T has been telling customers that data and messaging may be unavailable for up to two days.

Update 2: AT&T has provided an official statement and expects the problem to be resolved this evening.

"We are seeing a hardware issue in downtown San Francisco that is causing some degradation in service. GSM and EDGE voice and data services are still accessible," the statement reads. "Our experts are aware and working to resolve as quickly as possible." [via TechCrunch]

Update 3: When contacted by Electronista, AT&T indicated that the outage had been resolved as of 9pm ET (6pm PST/local), but only said that they company had worked to resolve a "hardware issue" and that it was still investigating the cause.

By Electronista Staff

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iPhone, industry, AT&T, mobile phones