AT&T down: 911 calls failing to go through amid major carrier outage

Mobile phone users advised to use landlines to contact police or ambulance services

The AT&T logo can be seen in New York, New York (REUTERS/Stephanie Keith/File Photos)

A major outage with the US telecoms carrier AT&T prevented people from calling emergency services on Tuesday.

People attempting to call 911 in the US from a mobile phone running off the AT&T network in some areas were unable to get through to an operator.

Police departments in affected areas of the country advised anyone attempting to reach emergency services to use a landline or a mobile phone with a different service provider.

"At this time AT&T is experiencing a nationwide network service outage. This is effecting the ability to reach 911 on a cell phone if you have AT&T," Tarrant County police department in Texas warned.

"This is a nationwide outage on AT&T. We will provide updates as they come in."

People were also advised to call local police stations directly.

It is not the first time AT&T wireless customers have been unable to make calls to 911 as a result of an outage.

In March 2017, the Federal Communications Commission received reports of widespread AT&T 911 call outages.

"Earlier this morning some wireless customers may have been unable to connect to 911," a spokesperson for AT&T told The Independent.

"This has been resolved and we apologise to anyone who was affected."