AT&T service restored after customers hit by widespread cellular outages in the U.S.

Over 70,000 AT&T outages were reported just before 8 a.m. ET Thursday, with most issues reported in Houston, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles and Atlanta, according to the tracking site Downdetector.

By Marlene Lenthang and Katherine Itoh

AT&T’s network suffered widespread outages across the country Thursday morning with cellular service and internet down, according to the tracking site Downdetector. 

Other cellular providers, including Verizon, T-Mobile and Cricket Wireless, also reported outages. Verizon and T-Mobile said those affected had been trying to contact AT&T users.

AT&T reported service had been restored to all customers affected by the outage by late Thursday afternoon.

By Thursday evening, AT&T said that based on an initial review, the company thinks the outage "was caused by the application and execution of an incorrect process used as we were expanding our network, not a cyber attack."

Over 32,000 AT&T outages were reported by customers about 4 a.m. ET Thursday. Reports dipped then spiked again to more than 50,000 around 7 a.m., with most issues reported in Houston, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles and Atlanta, according to the site.

That number surged to more than 71,000 just before 8 a.m. ET.

AT&T acknowledged the issue Thursday morning, saying: “Some of our customers are experiencing wireless service interruptions this morning.”

A little over 1,100 T-Mobile outages and about 3,000 Verizon outages were reported as of 7 a.m. Thursday.

Verizon said Thursday morning that the outages are not affecting its network directly, only customers trying to reach another carrier. 

T-Mobile also said early Thursday that the network didn’t suffer an outage and is operating normally, and Downdetector numbers likely reflect customers attempting to reach users on other networks.

Cricket Wireless, which is owned by AT&T and uses its network, is also experiencing cellular problems. More than 13,500 customers reported outages as of 8 a.m. ET on Thursday. The number dipped to around 10,000 by 10 a.m.

"Allow us to explain that there is a nationwide network incident impacting multiple services,"

Service has since been restored for

 all affected AT&T customers.