A widespread outage has impacted cellular data and voice services for tens of thousands of Verizon customers across the U.S. on Wednesday.
“We are aware of an issue impacting wireless voice and data services for some customers. Our engineers are engaged and are working to identify and solve the issue quickly,” the nation’s largest wireless carrier posted on X around 1 p.m. ET. “We understand how important reliable connectivity is and apologize for the inconvenience.”
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Verizon followed up with a post roughly an hour later stating that its “engineering teams are continuing to address today’s service interruptions.”
“We understand the impact this has on your day and remain committed to resolving this as quickly as possible,” the company said.
How many users are experiencing outages, and where?
The full scale of the issue is not entirely clear.
Nearly 200,000 users reported their service being disrupted on Wednesday, according to Downdetector, with reports flooding in around noon. A majority of the issues were reported to be related to mobile phone connectivity, at 61%, followed by users having no signal, at 35%, and mobile internet disruptions, at 4%.
The locations experiencing outages were scattered around much of the country, with the most reports coming from New York City, Houston, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Miami, Charlotte, Dallas, and Ashburn, according to the tracking website.
New York City showed a peak of over 10,000 reported outages just after 1:00 p.m. They city’s Office of Emergency Management said it was “working closely with our partners” and was aware of the outage, but did not name Verizon directly.
In Washington, D.C., the city’s official emergency notification system, AlertDC, sent a message to residents informing them of the “nationwide” Verizon outage.
The alert noted that the outage “may be affecting some users to connect with 911.”
What to do if your service is impacted
“If you have an emergency and can not connect using your Verizon Wireless device, please connect using a device from another carrier, a landline, or go to a police district or fire station to report the emergency,” AlertDC advised.
New York’s Office of Emergency Management suggested that “as reports come in of wireless service disruptions, it’s a great time to review your family’s emergency communications plan and make sure everyone is prepared for any threat or hazards.”
Users on social media began reporting outages before Verizon issued its first statement. Some said that their phones showed that they had no service or were in “SOS” mode.
Apple notes that when an iPhone’s status bar reads SOS or “SOS only,” the phone can still be used to make emergency calls through other carrier networks in the U.S., as well as Australia and Canada.
The company lists some steps users can take if their phone appears to be in SOS mode, including restarting the device and contacting their carrier.
Are other cell phone carriers being impacted?
Some disruptions were also reported for other carriers on Wednesday, including AT&T and T-Mobile.
Those reports were far fewer in number than those for Verizon, however, and both companies said that their networks were “operating normally.”
“However, due to Verizon’s reported outage, our customers may not be able to reach someone with Verizon service at this time,” a spokesperson for T-Mobile told media outlets in a statement.
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