UPDATE: As of 10:25 p.m., T-Mobile says all voice, data services have been restored:

T-Mobile confirms it has fully restored voice and text/picture messaging services for customers affected by intermittent service disruptions on Tuesday. About five percent of our customers across various geographies were affected for much of Tuesday evening, and by late Tuesday PST their service was restored. Our sole focus has been restoring full services for all customers; we are now investigating the root cause of the incident. We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience that this has caused our customers.

Sorry about the blog mess. It’s back now. At 7:23 p.m., no new updates from T-Mobile.

UPDATE 6:20 p.m.: T-Mobile offers a status report, saying only 5% of its customers have been affected by the outage.

“We’re making good progress restoring voice and messaging service to affected customers. At this time, approximately 5% of T-Mobile customers are experiencing service disruptions. Issues began at 5:30 p.m. Eastern time. … We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience that this has caused our customers.”

Update 5:59 p.m.: T-Mobile obviously out nationwide with blog comments coming from Minnesota, Dallas and elsewhere. Check out the comments below.

Updated 5:38 p.m.: When asked how will T-Mobile update customers get updates on the service problem, the company couldn’t offer a good reply. But it looks like T-Mobile’s Twitter account will be one place. Last update: Around 4:30 p.m.

Updated 5:29 p.m.: Added reports from other news sites.

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T-Mobile has just confirmed to me that there is a major outage.

“T-Mobile customers may be experiencing service disruptions impacting voice and data. Our rapid response teams have been mobilized to restore service as quickly as possible. We will provide updates as more information is available,” according to a statement by the company.

Reached by phone, David Henderson, a T-Mobile spokesman, said he could not discuss the outage any further or say whether it extends beyond Orange County. But it sounded like news of the outage was just hitting and he had to leave to get on a conference call to get more details.

When I asked him about this outage Monday after hearing that the service was out in South County, Henderson said no outages had been reported for the Orange County area.

I have heard of a very small number of T-Mobile customers experiencing outages in the past two to three weeks. Typically, their phones cannot find service.

I’m a T-Mobile customer as well and have not had any problems until the past 10 minutes. I’ll report more here as I learn more.

Are you having issues? Please comment below. Thanks!

Update: 5:41 p.m.: AP writes its outage story. Short and few new developments.

Update: 5:29 p.m.: C/Net is also reporting T-Mobile’s outage is widespread. The story says that this was part of a T-Mobile effort to update its SideKick users who have been without service for a whole month (!) The CNet reporter also notes that she’s heard about outages from customers in eastern Tennessee, Honolulu, Long Island, N.Y. and Westchester County, N.Y.

Update 5:16 p.m.: Phone service isn’t completely out. I’m still getting calls and can make calls.

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