The AT&T network service outage, which left tens of thousands of customers across the United States without calls or data for hours, is currently being investigated by New York's top prosecutor.
New York Attorney General Letitia James announced Thursday that she would investigate the causes of the Feb. 22 outage and AT&T's response to the disruption.
The power outage left users unable to make calls, send text messages or access the Internet for up to 12 hours and left many unable to call 911, a news release from James' office said.
“Americans rely on wireless providers to provide consistent, reliable service to help them in almost every aspect of their daily lives,” James said. “Nationwide outages are not just an inconvenience, they can be dangerous, and it is critical that we protect consumers when an outage occurs.”
She encouraged affected New Yorkers to file a complaint with her office.
At the height of the AT&T outage, more than 71,000 customers were out of service on the morning of February 22nd. While the outage lasted several hours, service was restored by the afternoon.
The network operator said the outage was likely due to a process error and not a cyberattack. The Federal Communications Commission investigated the incident.
Days after the outage, AT&T announced it would issue a $5 credit to affected accounts.
“We recognize the frustration this outage has caused and know that we have let many of our customers down,” the carrier said in a statement. “We understand this may have impacted their ability to connect with family, friends and others. Small business owners could be affected, potentially disrupting a key way they engage with customers.”
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com