SEATTLE — Subscribers with several networks, notably AT&T and T-Mobile, reported being unable to download data or use their apps for hours soon after receiving Wednesday’s “presidential alert” test, with AT&T blaming an unrelated hardware problem.
Cellphone networks across the Pacific Northwest were hit by the mysterious disruption minutes after the inaugural “presidential alert” — although at least one cellphone provider insists the two events were not related.
“The presidential text alert went out and after that I lost all internet, Gmail, apps — everything stopped working,” said Sarah Mendivel, a medical researcher at Seattle Children’s Hospital. When Mendivel finally got through to AT&T, she was told “they didn’t know what it was,” she said Wednesday.
Soon after the failure, both T-Mobile and AT&T reported being aware of the problem but did not know why it had occurred or when service would be fully restored, according to online news accounts. But by 5:30 p.m., AT&T was reporting the problem had been addressed.
The failure was reported by some customers from Oregon to Alaska.
AT&T spokesman Leland Kim said the problems “have nothing to do with the presidential text alert. It was a hardware data issue.”
The failure began around 11:21 a.m. Pacific Time — about two minutes after the inaugural test of the National Wireless Emergency Integrated Public Alert and Warning System. The system was designed as a means to alert the public in the event of a terrorist attack, national disaster or other imminent threats to public safety
The presidential text alert, which was to go out to 225 million cellphone users nationwide at 2:18 p.m. Eastern Time, was reportedly plagued by other glitches. In some parts of the country, some cellphones users reported not receiving the message at all, according to several online accounts.
If a user didn’t receive the alert, the Federal Emergency Management Administration offered several reasons, including that older cellphones (made before about 2012) may not be compatible with the emergency system; a cellphone may have been off or in airplane mode; it may have not been within range of an active cell tower or a wireless carrier may not have participated in the test.
A spokesman for T-Mobile said the carrier had been warned by FEMA that cellphone users could expect up to a 30-minute delay in receiving the signal.