What the heck? Did you guys strike early and target the wrong wireless carrier? The day before the possibly-ill-conceived “Operation Chokehold” is supposed to bring AT&T’s wireless network to a standstill, T-Mobile steals all the bad press by going out this evening across large parts of the Southeastern US and Puerto Rico.

Update: Immediately after posting this, T-Mobile announced the service was back up.

UPDATED 12/17 6:40pm PST: Some T-Mobile customers in the Southeastern United States and Puerto Rico experienced intermittent service degradation for voice and data services earlier today. We are pleased to report that T-Mobile has fixed the equipment malfunction. Full service has been restored to our customers. We again apologize for any inconvenience to impacted customers in the region.

---

Here’s the original post:

We got tipped off by Tyler in Alabama, who wrote in with this update two hours ago:

I live in Mobile, Alabama, in the most southern-part tip of the state on the Gulf, and have been without T-Mobile phone service since early this afternoon, alongside all of my friends and family.

After a discussion with a customer service rep, I’ve found out that service has collapsed all across Alabama, and is rolling outward from there (whatever in hell that means). The rep wouldn’t tell me much more, but indicated that it is exceptionally widespread, and is spreading, but left me without details.

She told me (after several attempts at calling, during which I was told all lines were busy) that in my state there are complaints that extend all the way past Montgomery and towards Birmingham, in the upper most section of the area, which seems to say it is blanketing the whole shebang.

There was no ETA for when it will come back, and there is absolutely no way to contact them via cell; I had to call on a landline.

There’s no word yet on what’s behind the outage, but T-Mobile says, “[Our] engineers and rapid response teams are working urgently to restore full service in impacted areas as quickly as possible. We apologize for any inconvenience this may be causing our customers.”

“T-Mobile Outage Strikes Southern Parts Of United States” [The Inquisitr]

Want more consumer news? Visit our parent organization, Consumer Reports, for the latest on scams, recalls, and other consumer issues.