At 11:15 a.m. Pacific, the network carrier T-Mobile suddenly experienced a massive outage with reports spiking over 13,000 in the first fifteen minutes on Down Detector. At it's peak the outage saw over 19,000 reports.
Initially, based on Down Detector reporting the outage appeared more widespread with major reports in Chicago, Kansas, and Atlanta.
However, T-Mobile informed Tom's Guide that service was only interrupted in the Salt Lake City area.
Another outage site downforeveryoneorjustme reported that 98% of people are saying that they have No Service at all.
The outage started around 10:40 a.m. Pacific, hitting its peak just around 11:30 a.m. After that reports hit a steady decline until around 1:30 p.m. Pacific.
In a statement to Tom's Guide a T-Mobile spokesperson said, "A facility in the Salt Lake area had a brief mechanical issue that impacted connectivity for some customers in that market, but this is now resolved and service is restored. We apologize for the inconvenience. "
Users on Reddit have started reporting outages with one poster saying that their service was in "Emergency Call Only" mode.
Affected reddit users appear to be specifically in Utah for now.
Mostly affecting Utah
Strangely, we're seeing a ton of complaints of down service from Utah but Down Detector isn't showing much from that state. Instead, their map is showing more reports out of the south east and in Phoenix. Though a number of comments are from Utahans.
Another site, Outage Report is only really showing Utah as having T-Mobile issues.
Tom's Guide has reached out to T-Mobile for more information or comment.
Tracking on Twitter, the T-Mobile Help account has received a number of complaints in the last 20 minutes about downed cell service.
So far, the Help page has not commented on the matter other than to ask customers to provide their address for further help. Like on Reddit, the reports on Twitter seem mostly set in Utah.
Alleged customer service rep claims 4 to 5 hours away from resolution
A user on Reddit reported that T-Mobile customer service got back to him and claimed that the issue will be fixed in "4 to 5 hours."
According to them, the carrier's customer service rep said, "Yes, the known outage will be fixed in next few hours, it may take 4-5 hour from now."
T-Mobile has not officially said anything about the outage.
Speedtest doesn't even crack 2Mbps in New York
A colleague of ours in our New York office just shared this screenshot from the Speedtest app. The download speed didn't even break 2 Mbps.
Mint Mobile which runs on T-Mobile also affected
Mint Mobile, a wireless provider that piggybacks on T-Mobile's network is also experiencing outages according to Down Detector which just spiked to over 1,000 reports in the last hour.
Unlike the T-Mobile map which shows a widespread outage, Mint Mobile appears to mainly be in Utah where we are seeing most of the reports.
It's looking more and more like the whole state of Utah is affected.
No cellular network
A colleague based out of Ogden, Utah sent us an image of his phone with no connectivity to T-Mobile's network. He reported that Wi-Fi calling, which he has activated, was also affected and is currently down.
With much of the state turning in reports, we've seen a number of complaints out of Ogden as well.
Conflicting reports on reason why
Please take this with a heavy grain of salt but different users across Down Detector, Reddit and X are claiming different reasons given for why Utah, specifically, is experiencing an outage.
One Redditor claimed that he was told a fiber line had been cut.
A commenter on Down Detector wrote, ""Straight from T-Mobile support
The issue you are experiencing is temporary and due to enhancements being done to upgrade the towers in your area to newer and faster technology. We are dedicated to providing the best customer experience and are working to complete the enhancements as quickly as possible. Once the work is completed, you will definitely experience faster and better service."
Which seems farfetched as T-Mobile has resources in place to notify customers about outages. Though one Redditor said that a customer service rep told them that it might be a combination of tower upgrades and "something else."
A number of people are speculating that it's because the greater Salt Lake City metro area is in the midst of a series of storms and receiving fresh snow.
Most reports claim that T-Mobile reps are keeping mum on the cause, which seems more correct.
As for the rest of the nation, we haven't seen much for why the carrier is experiencing outages elsewhere.
"Major event" affecting towers
The TV station KUTV, based out of St. George, Utah, was told by T-Mobile that a "major event" was causing the outage.
What the event entailed was not elaborated on.
This event apparently impacted four cell towers.
The report also notes that CenturyLink customers are being affected as well.
KUTV does not appear to have more information beyond that.
VoIP may be a solution
If you're looking for solutions you can try signing up for VoIP services like Google Voice.
We were reminded of this during the Verizon outage a couple of months ago.
Check out our guide here.
Outage reports see severe drop
After hitting a peak of 19,415 reports around 11:30 a.m. Pacific, we're seeing a steep decline on Down Detector.
As of this posting, the reports are down to around 5,000. Still high, but on downward slope.
MVNOs like Google Fi Wireless and Mint Mobile also appear to be slowing down though not as sharply as the T-Mobile map.
Several users on Reddit claiming to be based in Salt Lake City have reported that their service has returned.
T-Mobile has still not officially commented on the outage.
Colleague back up
Our colleague on the ground in Ogden, Utah reports that his service has returned as of 1:00 p.m. Pacific.
As a reminder, iOS 18 introduced satellite messaging to the iPhone. If you're on iPhone you might see a satellite icon on your phone. Check out our guide on how to send satellite messages.
"A switch went out."
KUTV has updated their story saying that a customer service rep claimed a "switch went out."
Allegedly that switch has been repaired and service is coming back.
It's not clear if that means something at a switching center, where calls can be connected to another phone or network or part of process where your phone switches to a new cell tower as signal gets stronger or weaker. The site Techopedia has a breakdown of how the switching center works.
The Salt Lake Tribune reported that the outage was affecting 70% of T-Mobile customers in Utah.
T-Mobile has still not made an official statement as to why the outage occurred.
Service slowly getting back to normal
After a peak of nearly 20,000 reports around 11:20 a.m. Pacific, it appears that the T-Mobile outage is slowly being resolved.
Currently on Down Detector (1:25 p.m. Pacific), there are less than a 1,000 outage reports and continually declining.
Tom's Guide will keep an eye out in case anything changes but for now it appears that the outage is nearly over.
T-Mobile says issue resolved and service restored
A T-Mobile spokesperson responded to Tom's Guide saying, "A facility in the Salt Lake area had a brief mechanical issue that impacted connectivity for some customers in that market, but this is now resolved and service is restored. We apologize for the inconvenience."
T-Mobile isn't the only company that had service problems today as Verizon noted customers in the Northeastern part of the United States may have experienced a brief disruption as well.
A day on from the outage and everything appears to be functioning as normal. Downdetector is showing no signs of ongoing issues and the reports on social media have stopped as well.
