AT&T’s digital phone lines go out, produce ‘line disconnected’ message when called

Widespread outage for AT&T’s digital phone lines

NEW YORK — AT&T’s new digital home phone service failed across the country Tuesday.

Customers of AT&T Inc.’s U-Verse Voice say their landline phones have had no dial tones since the morning. Reached by cell phone, the customers say those who call them get a message that the line has been disconnected. Support personnel are telling customers that a server crash brought down the service in AT&T’s entire 22-state local-phone service area.

AT&T spokeswoman Mari Melguizo says service was being restored in the afternoon, though some customers are still affected.

U-Verse Voice sends calls over the customer’s Internet connection, making it technically similar to independent services such as Vonage. AT&T said in January that it had signed up more than 1 million U-Verse Voice customers.