Over the past several days, AT&T customers in Santa Barbara have reported dropped calls, unsent texts, and unusable service — many turning to Wi-Fi calling just to stay connected. While the issue appears to have subsided for most users, AT&T has yet to publicly clarify the cause of the disruption.
A company spokesperson issued the following statement Monday: “Some customers in Santa Barbara and the surrounding areas may be experiencing service disruptions due to an outage on another carrier’s network. We’re in contact with the local provider, who is working to resolve issues outside of our network, so that we can fully restore service to customers as quickly as possible.”
That explanation has raised eyebrows, especially as other carriers in the area — such as T-Mobile. “We did not have any issues in the Santa Barbara area. We’re not sure what AT&T is referring to,” a spokesperson from T-Mobile’s media relations team told the Independent.
Locally, a T-Mobile store representative echoed that sentiment, noting that while their network remained unaffected, “lines have been out the door” with frustrated AT&T customers looking to make the switch.
Meanwhile, Santa Barbara County Fire officials said they have experienced no unusual communications disruptions. “There are a few known dead zones in the county, which is why we recommend satellite backup systems,” said Captain Scott Safechuck, Public Information Officer for the County Fire Department. “But we have experienced nothing out of the ordinary.”
AT&T’s own helpline offered a list of possible causes — tower repair, inclement weather, or maintenance — and encouraged customers to enable Wi-Fi calling or check the company’s outage website for updates.
As of Tuesday, an AT&T representative told the Independent that the issue had been resolved and only 28 customers were reported to have been affected. No explanation was provided as to which network originally went down or why other carriers claim to have had no related issues.
The Federal Communications Commission and other providers have been contacted for clarification. This story will be updated as more information becomes available.
Emma Eckert contributed to the reporting on this story.
