Thousands in Charlotte without cell service amid AT&T outage

Between the lines: You might have noticed an SOS message on your cell phone.

• It is unclear what led to the outage.
• AT&T customers began to get cell service back in the afternoon.
• Verizon and T-Mobile customers also reported outages Thursday, but at a much lower scale than AT&T.

Why it matters: The outages left customers unable to place calls, send texts or use the internet on their mobile phones, prompting safety warnings from authorities, Axios' Ivana Saric writes.

• Customers were briefly unable to contact 911, center had no problems receiving calls, according to Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department. But its 911 center had no problems receiving calls.

What they're saying: "We are working urgently to restore service to them. We encourage the use of Wi-Fi calling until service is restored," AT&T told Axios in a statement.

Editor's note: We've updated this story with details of customers' restored service. We'll provide more updates as they become available.