A nationwide Verizon Wireless outage was finally resolved on Wednesday night after tens of thousands of phones were knocked into SOS mode and fuming customers were stuck without service for over 12 hours.
“The outage has been resolved. If customers are still having an issue, we encourage them to restart their devices to reconnect to the network,” Verizon posted in a statement on social media around 10:20 p.m.
“For those affected, we will provide account credits. Details will be shared directly with customers. We sincerely apologize for the disruption,” the statement continued.
The outage triggered over 175,000 outage reports nationwide on Downdetector at its peak. Spotiness in coverage began as early as 9 a.m. ET for some customers and the issue gained widespread attention on social media around noon.
Furious customers from coast to coast complained their phones were left stuck in SOS mode with calls failing to connect and no bars of service.
The disruption also prompted emergency alerts in New York City and Washington, DC, warning that Verizon customers were having trouble reaching 911.
An hour before the outage was resolved, the nation’s largest wireless carrier copped to letting its customers down.
“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,” Verizon wrote on X.
The carrier also vowed to “make this right” and offer account credits to customers affected by the massive outage. Verizon said details on the credits will be shared directly with customers.
Republican New York State Assembly member Anil Beephan, Jr. announced on Wednesday that he had asked the Federal Communications Commission to look into “the repeated Verizon wireless outages that have occurred over the past year,” which have posed a “serious threat” to public safety.
The outage “had a significant and unacceptable impact on public safety, including disruptions to reliable access to emergency communications and critical response systems,” Beephan wrote in a letter to FCC chairman Brendan Carr.
“In addition to public safety risks, these outages have caused substantial and ongoing inconveniences to residents, businesses, and local institutions, many of whom rely on wireless service for employment, healthcare access, education, and daily operations,” he continued.
In an earlier statement, the FCC said it is “aware of today’s wireless outages impacting some Verizon customers.”
“We are continuing to monitor the situation,” the FCC wrote on X.
