August 21, 2019

T-Mobile customers report outage, can’t make calls or send text messages

T-Mobile customers across the U.S. say they can’t make calls or send text messages following an apparent outage — although mobile data appears to be unaffected.

We tested with a T-Mobile phone in the office. Both calls to and from the T-Mobile phone failed. When we tried to send a text message, it said the message could not be sent. The outage began around 3pm PT (6pm ET).

Users took to social media to complain about the outage. It’s not clear how many customers are affected, but users across the U.S. have said they are affected.

A T-Mobile support account said the cell giant has “engaged our engineers and are working on a resolution.”

In a tweet two hours into the outage, chief executive John Legere acknowledged the outage, adding that the company has “already started to see signs of recovery.”

T-Mobile is the third largest cell carrier after Verizon (which owns TechCrunch) and AT&T. The company had its proposed $26.5 billion merger with Sprint approved by the Federal Communications Commission, despite a stream of state attorneys general lining up to block the deal.

Updated with acknowledgement by chief executive John Legere.

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