How to handle cellphone outages

A temporary outage that hit cellphone networks on Thursday and impacted tens of thousands of Americans left many wondering how they can prepare for outages and find ways to make calls despite their network being down.

Outages were initially reported on AT&T’s network around 3:30 a.m. ET and progressed from there, with more than 73,000 reports just after 9 a.m. ET, according to Downdetector – a website that tracks reports of service outages. AT&T said Thursday afternoon that it had restored service to all affected customers and sincerely apologized for the incident. Verizon and T-Mobile said their networks continued to operate normally during the incident, although customers who were attempting to contact others on AT&T’s cell network may have experienced issues.

Tech expert Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson appeared on FOX Business Network’s “The Claman Countdown” and explained how some iPhone users impacted by the outage can get their phone out of SOS mode, as well as a workaround.

“Some iPhone users that did experience that cellular outage are also reporting that their phones are getting stuck in that emergency SOS mode,” Knutsson said. “If you look at your phone, and it still says SOS at the top, that means it’s going to be sort of stuck until you fix it. This happens when your phone can’t reach Wi-Fi or cellular for an extended period. Some people have had success by hard-restarting their iPhone after that has happened.”

CELLPHONE OUTAGE HITS AT&T CUSTOMERS NATIONWIDE; VERIZON AND T-MOBILE USERS ALSO AFFECTED

An iPhone on the AT&T cellular network is stuck on SOS after AT&T networks experienced a temporary outage in the U.S. on Thursday. (Photo Illustration by Jeremy Hogan/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images / Getty Images)

“Cycle your phone – you can power it off, power it back on and if that SOS is still there, then go ahead and hard reset your phone,” Knutsson said, while noting that his website has detailed instructions on that process for Android and iPhone users.

Host Liz Claman asked Knutsson about ways individuals can work around cellular network outages and make calls to communicate with others as needed and what they can do to prepare in advance for those circumstances.

“In terms of just being ready for something like this when it happens again, because I don’t say if, Liz, it’s when – so turn on that Wi-Fi calling or just get really familiar with how to do it. On an iPhone, it’s settings; cellular, Wi-Fi calling, and you flip it on. Androids are very much the same except, instead of saying Wi-Fi calling it says connections or calls and then turn on Wi-Fi calling,” Knutsson said.

AT&T CELLPHONE OUTAGE HITS THE US: HOW TO USE WI-FI CALLING

AT&T restored service to all customers affected by the hours-long outage. (Alex Tai/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images / Getty Images)

He added that Americans should be mindful of their personal cybersecurity and plan for contingencies like protracted cellular network outages.

“Being prepared, being resilient, whether it’s a glitchy network outage on things that we heavily rely on, or it’s the doomsday attack that inevitably, one day, we will have a pointed attack on us that really causes some massive disruption – making yourself resilient is the answer,” Knutsson said. “And that’s by taking your security in your own hands, putting up that wall of your own. Investigating and investing in proper defense such as antivirus software is the key.”

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White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby told FOX Business’ Edward Lawrence there is no reason to believe the outage was a cybersecurity incident.

The Department of Homeland Security, the FBI, the Federal Communications Commission and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency are investigating the outage.

FOX Business’ Pilar Arias and Louis Casiano contributed to this report.