KING COUNTY, Wash. — King County is asking residents not to call 911 to report a cell service outage that is impacting AT&T service nationwide.
The county asks that only those who have a real emergency call 911.
AT&T callers are having trouble getting through to dispatch centers while the outage remains ongoing, according to the county.
Kitsap County 911 also confirmed that some callers with AT&T service are also having trouble reaching emergency services.
King County advised people who are experiencing an emergency but can't call to try texting 911, or calling 911 from a landline. People can also try calling their ten-digit number for emergency services in their community.
Landline phone service does not appear to be impacted by the cell phone service outage.
Downdetector, which tracks online outage reports submitted by users, showed more than 64,000 customers have reported issues with AT&T, as of around 5:30 a.m.
The outages began at approximately 12:30 a.m. The carrier has more than 240 million subscribers, the country's largest.
“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.
Customers still appear to have access to "SOS mode," which allows cell phone users without access to regular service to call 911 in an emergency, piggybacking off of other networks nearby to do so.
Verizon and T-Mobile both had outage reports but said their service is not impacted. Both companies believe the outage reports are coming from customers trying to contact people with AT&T service.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
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