CHARLOTTE, N.C. — A nationwide cell phone service outage Thursday affected mainly AT&T customers, and many iPhone users saw their phones lose all their bars and switch into “SOS mode.”
Losing service on your phone is always an inconvenience, but what if you’re in an emergency and need to reach police immediately? SOS mode will still allow you to make those critical calls and texts.
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In a statement on the outage, AT&T said, “We encourage the use of Wi-Fi calling until service is restored.”
But what if you have an emergency but you’re nowhere near a Wi-Fi signal?
All cellular service providers must follow strict FCC wireless 911 service guidelines, which ensure everyone has access to emergency services.
The FCC said "basic 911 rules require service providers to transmit all 911 calls to 911 call centers, regardless of which cell phone service the caller has." So when you don’t have service, your phone will attempt to route your 911 call through other networks, if available.
So for example, T-Mobile, by law, has to transmit all 911 calls to emergency call centers, even if the person calling doesn’t have T-Mobile service.
But what exactly is SOS mode?
According to Apple, SOS mode is just a way for your iPhone to tell you that you don’t have your normal cellular connection.
iPhone 14 and newer models also have satellite SOS capability, meaning you can call 911 even when outside of any other cellular service range unless you’re someplace where the satellite signal can’t reach you.
Android phones will also let you call 911 without your normal service, it’s just not called SOS mode.
And emergency services, like police and fire, are asking people to not call 911 just to make sure it works from their cell phones. Doing so clogs up the line for real emergencies.
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