In May 2025, Cellcom customers across the U.S. experienced a widespread outage that impacted voice and SMS services. Here's a full breakdown of what happened, how Cellcom responded, and what customers can expect in terms of compensation.
📅 Timeline of Events
- May 14, ~8 PM: Voice and SMS outages begin nationwide. Wikipedia source
- May 14, 11:09 PM: Cellcom confirms voice outage on Facebook.
- May 15, 6:15 AM: SMS also confirmed affected. 911 and data services still operational. Cellcom Service Updates
- May 16, 6:35 PM: Partial restoration of voice services.
- May 19: Internal SMS and Cellcom-to-Cellcom calls restored.
- May 20: CEO Brighid Riordan confirms cyber incident; no customer data breached.
- May 27: Most external calls and SMS fully restored.
🛡️ Root Cause: Cybersecurity Incident
Cellcom confirmed the outage was due to a cybersecurity incident, possibly ransomware-related. The company brought in federal authorities including the FBI and private forensic firms to investigate.
Cellcom stated that no customer data was compromised, thanks to preemptive segmentation of their internal systems.
📢 Communication Issues
During the outage, customers voiced frustrations on platforms like Reddit about lack of transparency and unclear timelines. While Cellcom aimed to post daily updates, many users found them inconsistent.
💵 Billing Credits & Compensation
Cellcom announced two forms of compensation:
- Automatic credit applied to July bills for all customers. Details here
- "Double the Downtime" offer: Customers who opted in before June 16 received an additional credit equal to the length of the outage. Opt-in info
Prepaid and postpaid lines are both eligible for credit.
✅ What You Should Do
- Restart your device or toggle Airplane Mode if you’re still experiencing issues.
- Check your July bill for applied credits.
- Follow Cellcom's Service Updates page for any new developments.
🔍 Industry Takeaway
This incident highlights the vulnerability of legacy telecom infrastructure to cyberattacks and the importance of fast, transparent communication in crisis scenarios.
