T-Cell suffered a significant outage throughout components of the US final night time, impacting voice, information, and messaging companies. For iPhone customers particularly, this outage meant that the “SOS” icon was displayed within the standing bar. Right here’s what which means and the right way to repair it if you happen to’re nonetheless caught in SOS mode…
T-Cell’s main community outage
The T-Cell outage seems to be largely resolved. The corporate’s president of expertise, Neville Ray, took to Twitter to say that there’s been a “vital enchancment” in community availability and issues are “working close to regular ranges.”
T-Cell attributed the outage to a third-party fiber interruption. This outage seems to have additionally had ripple impacts throughout AT&T and Verizon, although neither of these carriers suffered an outage to the diploma of T-Cell.
What iPhone “SOS” means and the right way to repair it
Due to these outages and connectivity points, iPhone customers are noticing an “SOS” icon of their machine’s standing bar. Even at this time, when the outages have supposedly been resolved, some iPhones are nonetheless exhibiting this SOS icon as a substitute of the conventional mobile sign particulars.
It’s essential to distinguish that that is completely different from the Emergency SOS characteristic for iPhone and Apple Watch that may routinely name emergency companies in your behalf.

In a assist doc, Apple explains that SOS in your iPhone’s standing bar implies that your machine isn’t linked to a mobile community, however you’ll be able to nonetheless make emergency calls. At present, this characteristic is on the market in Australia, Canada, and the US.
Because of this if you happen to lose mobile connectivity in your iPhone, corresponding to when your service experiences an outage, you’ll oftentimes see the “SOS” icon within the standing bar.
In the event you suppose it is a mistake and you need to have community connectivity, right here are some things to attempt.
- Flip mobile information off after which again on once more: Go to Settings, then faucet Mobile or Cell Information. In the event you’re utilizing an iPad, you may see Settings > Mobile Information.
- Flip your mobile line off and again on: Go to Settings > Mobile and test to see in case your mobile line is turned on. In case your mobile line is off, flip it again on. Then test to see when you’ve got service.
- Verify for a Provider Settings replace: Faucet Settings > Normal > About. If an replace is on the market, you’ll see an choice to replace your service settings.
It’s clear that yesterday’s T-Cell is having lingering results on some iPhone customers. If not one of the above steps resolve the community issues you’re experiencing, you’ll possible want to succeed in out to your service immediately.
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