AT&T outages impact retailers’ card machines
Those hoping to spend holiday gift cards or go grocery shopping with a credit card in Tennessee may have to wait.
Multiple stores in Tennessee and some surrounding states reported internet outages due to the explosion that damaged an AT&T building in Nashville Friday morning.
The damage from the blast also caused outages for some phones and 911 systems in multiple Tennessee and Kentucky counties, though AT&T reported Sunday that "significant progress" was made overnight in restoring service.
Nashville Fire Chief William Swann said at a morning news conference that AT&T was expecting services to be back up and running at full capacity by the end of Sunday.
More than 3 feet of water Saturday was pumped out of the affected building, and power was restored to four floors, according to the company. But access is still limited to lower floors. AT&T expected two dozen more trailers of disaster recovery equipment to arrive at the site by end of day Sunday.
Walmart confirmed Saturday afternoon that the outages impacted multiple stores. Shoppers took to social media to report Walmart closures in some locations, while others accepted only cash.
"Due to the AT&T outage, some of our stores are experiencing temporary internet outages," Walmart said in a statement. "This may impact our ability to process credit card transactions and process returns."
The retailer said it was working with local personnel to resolve the issue.
Internet outages are impacting Walmart stores as far as north Alabama, according to reporting from News19.
Middle Tennessee Electric announced Saturday that it will suspend disconnections for non-payment and prepay customers and payment fees due to "telephone and online communication disruptions after the Christmas Day bombing near AT&T'S facility in
Nashville," according to a statement.
MTE was working with AT&T to restore its communication channels.
Cassandra Stephenson covers business at The Tennessean, part of the USA Today Network — Tennessee. Reach Cassandra at ckstephenson@tennessean.com or at (731) 694-7261. Follow Cassandra on Twitter at @Cstephenson731.