T-Mobile Blames Network Failure on a Fiber-Circuit Supplier

  • Broken link in Southeast caused overload and ‘traffic storm’
  • Company pledges permanent safeguards to prevent a repeat
Photographer: Akos Stiller/Bloomberg
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T-Mobile US Inc. said its nationwide service outage Monday stemmed from the failure of a Southeast fiber circuit that was leased from a wholesale network supplier, which triggered an overload and a “traffic storm.”

As many as 68 million of T-Mobile’s wireless customers had their mobile connections disrupted for several hours as the company tried to identify the problem and restore service.