AT&T wireless data outage hits East Coast

Not getting any data access on your iPhone—or your other AT&T smartphone, for that matter? Join the club. Update: Looks like AT&T's data network is slowly coming back online.

AT&T and iPhone users all along the East Coast—including Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maryland, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Washington, D.C., and Virginia—are reporting that Web, e-mail, and all other data access is dead, even though their phones are showing "3G" and "EDGE" icons and full service bars.

Indeed, I'm one of them. My iPhone started having trouble fetching e-mail as early as Tuesday night in New York; now, on Wednesday morning on the East Coast, I'm getting no data access at all. At least voice calling still works.

Also, it appears that the problem isn't isolated to the iPhone; AT&T users on HowardForums and the official AT&T support forum say that their Nokia, HP, Samsung, HTC, and BlackBerry handsets are also stuck without data access.

I'm still waiting for official word from AT&T HQ about the outage; however, an AT&T phone support rep confirmed that the data outage extends along the entire East Coast.

It's still not clear what's causing the outage; some are speculating that Hurricane Gustav had something to do with it, although there's nothing official on that front.

In any case, the outage comes on the heels about complaints over the iPhone 3G's iffy 3G reception, as well as an informal survey from Wired that indicates that AT&T's still under-construction 3G network may be more to blame than the iPhone itself.

Update: Multiple news outlets are reporing on the data outage as well; so far, AT&T is saying that it's "looking into" the problem, according to Ars Technica.

Update #2: Just got off the phone with Mark Siegel at AT&T, who said a "routing issue" was to blame for the outage. (What's a routing issue, exactly? Beats me, and Siegel said he wouldn't get any more "granular" than that.) In any case Siegel said that the problem was fixed "shortly before noon" Eastern time (and indeed, I'm getting 3G access on my iPhone again). Siegel also denied that Gustav had anything to do with the outage.