Tens of thousands of Verizon customers across the United States experienced a significant service outage on Monday, leaving many without cellphone service for hours.
According to data from outage tracker DownDetector, reports of the outage peaked at over 100,000 shortly after 11 a.m. Eastern Time (1500 GMT). Although the number of affected users decreased throughout the day, nearly 48,000 customers were still experiencing issues closer to 4 p.m. ET (2000 GMT).
Frustrated users from various parts of the country took to social media to share their experiences. The outage impacted regions across the nation, including the Southeastern U.S., where residents are still recovering from the aftermath of Hurricane Helene. Reports also emerged from the West Coast, Midwest, and Northeast, indicating that the issue was widespread and not confined to a single area.
New York-based Verizon acknowledged the network issue in a statement, apologizing “for any inconvenience some of our customers experienced today.” The company added that while service had been restored for many customers, their engineers were “continuing to work to fully resolve this issue.”
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) also acknowledged the outage later in the day. While the FCC did not provide further details, it stated that it was investigating to determine the cause of the disruption.
During the outage, some Verizon iPhone users reported seeing “SOS” messages displayed in the status bar of their devices. This message indicates that while the device cannot connect to its own network, it can still make emergency calls through other carrier networks.
The outage highlights the reliance on mobile connectivity in today’s society and raises concerns about network resilience, especially in regions already grappling with natural disasters like Hurricane Helene.
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Many Verizon customers across the U.S. hit by service outage
cgtn.com
