It appears that AT&T is planning to offer customers impacted by the recent massive blackout of their service with a small amount of credit on their accounts.
In a statement made on Saturday night, AT&T apologized again for the issue and then said that each customer affected by the outage would receive credit for “the average cost of a full day of service.” It has been specified by AT&T that this will mean “one $5 credit per account.”
When it comes to who will receive this credit AT&T has said that it is for small businesses and consumers who were most affected by the outage. In regards to when this will occur, AT&T said "customers will see the credit in 1-2 bill cycles depending on when their bill closes. Most credits will be posted in the next billing cycle."
AT&T's outage was one of the biggest in recent memory, with customers across the US waking up early on Thursday morning to find that their phones would not connect. It wasn’t long until AT&T acknowledged there was a problem and stated that it was investigating the problem. However, it wasn’t until 4 p.m. ET on the same Thursday that the issue was finally resolved for all customers.
The most pressing concern for many since has been regarding what caused the outage in the end. There were many rumors and even claims that it was a cyber attack. AT&T has been adamant that the issue was down to a software fault, and both the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI arrived at the same conclusion.
We won’t know if this $5 credit will be enough to comfort customers, and we won’t likely know the full extent of the fallout for a while. However, it appears that AT&T is doing what it can. While some may argue that $5 is not much for potentially losing an entire day of business it is better than nothing. We will keep our eyes open in case this story develops and will get back to you with any news as it comes.
