Are solar flares responsible for the AT&T service outage? Not likely, experts say.
A mysterious widespread cellphone outage has coincided with the eruption of two powerful "X-class" solar flares from a "dangerous" sunspot. Yet scientists warn that the two events are probably unconnected. The two intense flares burst from the sunspot AR3590 Wednesday (Feb. 21) at 6:07 p.m. ET (23:07 GMT) and Thursday (Feb. 22) at 1:32 a.m. ET (06:32 GMT), according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). After Travel ing to Earth at the speed of light, the flares caused successive shortwave radio frequency blackouts that lasted one or two hours. The first was over the western U.S. and Pacific Ocean, and the second was over the Indian Ocean. Related: Watch the 1st X-class solar flare of 2024 erupt from the sun in explosive fashion Hours later at 11a.m. ET (16:00 GMT) , multiple cellular providers — including AT&T , Verizon and T-Mobile — reported disruption to their service across the U.S. for over 70,000 users, according to the d...