[Updated: Tue., Jan. 6, 2026, 2:47pm]
An AT&T wireless outage caused by a fiber cut disrupted the ability to place 9-1-1 calls from AT&T devices in Santa Barbara on Tuesday morning, prompting local police to issue an alert advising residents to use alternate methods to reach emergency services.
The Santa Barbara Police Department sent a Nixle alert shortly after 7:30 a.m., warning that an outage affecting AT&T 5G and LTE service in the city could prevent some customers from calling 9-1-1.
“There is currently an AT&T outage affecting 5G/LTE service in the City of Santa Barbara which may impact the ability to call 911 from AT&T devices,” the alert stated.
Police advised residents needing emergency assistance to text 9-1-1, call from a landline or a cell phone served by another carrier, or use the department’s non-emergency number at (805) 882-8900. As of Tuesday morning, there was no estimated time for repair.
Santa Barbara Police Department spokesperson Sgt. Bryan Kerr said the department first received notice of the issue at approximately 6:38 a.m.
“We don’t have any details,” Kerr said. “But this has happened in the past.” Kerr said the department had not been provided with information about the cause of the outage or when service might be restored.
In an email response to an inquiry from the Santa Barbara Independent, a spokesperson for AT&T said the company was investigating the issue. AT&T said later on Tuesday that the disruption was caused by physical damage in the fiber optic cables (strands that transmit data) belonging to an outside telecommunications provider.
“Some wireless customers in the Santa Barbara area may have trouble dialing 9-1-1 from their cellular phones due to a fiber cut on another carrier’s network,” an AT&T spokesperson said in a statement, adding that the company is in contact with the local carrier “as they work to resolve the issue so that service can be restored as quickly as possible.”
The company said 9-1-1 service itself remained operational and that customers could still contact emergency services via landline calls.
The disruption marks the latest in a series of similar incidents. In late October, AT&T customers across Santa Barbara County experienced a prolonged outage that prevented wireless 9-1-1 calls for nearly a full day. AT&T later said that outage was also “caused by fiber cuts,” though the company did not disclose where the damage occurred.
