Verizon outage: Issue resolved after thousands of customers reported losing signal

PHILADELPHIA - Verizon shared that the issue impacting thousands of customers earlier on Wednesday has been resolved. 

Anyone who may still be experiencing network issues is asked to restart their devices.

The company also reiterated that customers who were impacted by Wednesday's service outages are eligible to receive an account credit.

What they're saying:

"Today, we let many of our customers down and for that, we are truly sorry. They expect more from us. We are working non-stop and making progress. Our teams will continue to work through the night until service is restored for all impacted customers. We will make this right - for any customer affected, we will provide account credits and share updates soon," Verizon said Wednesday evening. 

Customers of other carriers, including AT&T and T-Mobile, also reported issues, though at significantly lower levels than Verizon. 

"We usually talk every day," said Lexi Daniels. She was relieved to learn that a Verizon outage is likely the reason she cannot reach her friend in Texas.

 "It's saying the number is out of service," she said. Daniels learned this evening about the nationwide outage affecting customers personally and business-wise who have not had service since early today. The issue is trending on X as customers sound off on social media.

 One post reads, "Oh Verizon you have done it this time. I need my GPS."  Another says,

"Verizon came back after a couple hours earlier today but sometime between then and now it went down again in Dallas." One customer posted, "Anyone in New Jersey experiencing the Verizon outage? My phone is showing SOS. Verizon what is going on?" And another reads, "Who else has a Verizon outage? I have no service, full SOS in North Carolina.

 "In the industry that I’m in the first thing I think about with this is a cyber-attack," said Anthony Mongeluzo he is a tech expert and the President/CEO of PCS.

"Now nothing has been proven yet but to have a fortune 50 company that provides vital services to pretty much every industry down this hard, this long, it's something pretty spectacular," he said. His  family is also affected by the outage.

 "I don't know how my wife's phone is up and mine is not," said Mongeluzo.

Is Verizon down?

What we know:

Reports of problems began coming in to DownDetector around 12:00 p.m. ET on January 14.

According to DownDetector, which tracks outages, there were more than 171,000 reports of Verizon outages as of 12:30 p.m. ET.

Half of users were self-reporting issues with mobile signal. Other users were reporting issues with WiFi and broadband internet.

The company confirmed the outage on social media.

"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 company said on social media platform X. "We understand how important reliable connectivity is and apologize for the inconvenience."

Verizon outage continues

At 2 p.m. ET, Verizon issued another update on the Verizon outage, stating that, "Verizon engineering teams are continuing to address today's service interruptions. Our teams remain fully deployed and are focused on the issue. We understand the impact this has on your day and remain committed to resolving this as quickly as possible."

At 4:12 p.m. ET, Verizon's team said it was still "on the ground actively working" to fix the service issue.

"We know this is a huge inconvenience, and our top priority is to get you back online and connected as fast as possible. We appreciate your patience while we work to resolve this issue," the company wrote.

What we don't know:

As of Wednesday afternoon, it was still unclear what the issue was or what caused the outages.

DownDetector outages

Dig deeper:

There were also more than 1,600 T-Mobile and AT&T outages reported, as well, but T-Mobile said its operations were running "normally and as expected."

Half of T-Mobile users were self-reporting issues with "no signal," followed by issues with 5G home internet and mobile internet. AT&T users reported issues with mobile signal and WiFi.

In a statement, T-Mobile told FOX Local that its users were not facing issues.

"T-Mobile’s network is keeping our customers connected, and we’ve confirmed that our network is operating normally and as expected. However, due to Verizon’s reported outage, our customers may not be able to reach someone with Verizon service at this time," T-Mobile said.

iPhone, Android ‘SOS’ only – what does it mean?

Big picture view:

During the outage, iPhone and Android users reported seeing SOS or "SOS only" in the status bar. 

This means the device isn't connected to a network, but the phone users can still make emergency calls.

This is a developing story. Check back for more updates.

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