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AT&T suffers major outage following massive solar flares

However, the two events may or may not be connected.

Several media outlets speculated that these outages were caused by two powerful solar flares that erupted from the sun on Wednesday evening (Feb. 21) and early morning of Thursday (Feb. 22). X-class flares are classified as the most powerful outbursts from the sun that cause temporary disruptions or loss of connectivity for users with high-frequency radio signals on the 'sunlit' side of the earth, a report from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) stated. Brett Tingley, managing editor at Space.com, said that such powerful flares have the potential to create long-lasting radiation storms that can "disrupt satellites, wreak havoc on global transmission systems and, if strong enough, cause worldwide blackouts."

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