Wireless customers are dealing with another major carrier outage this week as T-Mobile users reported widespread service problems Monday evening. This latest disruption comes just days after Verizon experienced a significant coast-to-coast outage that affected millions of subscribers.
The T-Mobile service issues became apparent around 5:30 PM Eastern Time, with customer complaints spiking dramatically according to outage tracking website Downdetector, as reported by PhoneArena. Within one hour, reported problems increased nearly nine-fold, from 82 complaints to 721. But by 7:00 PM EDT, the reports seemed to have died down.
Customers in major cities felt the impact most severely, including those in Chicago, Los Angeles, Detroit, Seattle, Houston, Atlanta, Indianapolis, Charlotte, and Minneapolis. The problems weren't limited to traditional cell phone service – T-Mobile's growing home internet customer base was hit particularly hard, representing half of all reported issues.
For many affected customers, the outage meant losing both their primary mobile service and backup internet connection simultaneously, as T-Mobile's 5G Home Internet service relies on the same network infrastructure. Mobile virtual network operators like Mint Mobile, which use T-Mobile's towers, also experienced service interruptions.
The back-to-back carrier outages highlight the challenges facing wireless networks as they support increasing numbers of devices and services. With customers relying on their phones for everything from work communications to emergency services, even brief service disruptions can have significant real-world impact.
Neither carrier has provided detailed explanations for their respective outages, though both incidents appear to stem from technical issues rather than external factors like severe weather or cyberattacks.
Source: PhoneArena
