Chaos in Connectivity: The AT&T Service Disruption

A sudden and widespread network issue hit AT&T on February 22, leading to a spike in searches for solutions and alternatives as users dealt with service problems across the United States.

Data from NoDepositRewards.com shows that searches for “Cancel ATT” saw a 567% increase during the outage, indicating a rise in dissatisfaction and frustration among AT&T customers. The search volume increase for “Cancel ATT” actually shot up by over six times the average volume as the tech company’s service went down across the country.

During the outage period lasting from 3:30 a.m. To 6:50 a.m. ET, more than 291,000 AT&T customers — both cellular and Internet users — reported service disruptions. The outage impacted not only AT&T users but also Verizon, T-Mobile, and UScellular customers, who also reported problems with their service.

Effects on States and User Searches

A closer look at Google Trends data reveals the distribution of the outage impact, showing which states faced severe service interruptions and subsequent search activity.

Search data reveals Arkansas residents experienced the most widespread issues compared to other states, with the highest search interest score of 495 out of 600. Arkansas had the most searches per population for the terms “ATT down,” “ATT outage,” and “network outage.” The state also ranked in the top five for “ATT SOS” and “iPhone SOS” queries and ninth for “ATT network down.”

Kentucky has the second-highest number of help queries per population, with Google data showing residents were searching “ATT SOS” more than any other state and were second for three other keyword searches.

Meanwhile, West Virginia, Louisiana, and Indiana experienced the third to fifth most significant outage issues. West Virginia and Louisiana topped national searches for “ATT network down” and “iPhone SOS,” respectively.