Verizon says it has resolved a widespread outage that left tens of thousands of customers across the United States without access to phone calls, text messaging, and mobile data for much of Wednesday. The disruption, which began early in the afternoon, affected users in major cities and sparked frustration as reports quickly piled up on social media and outage-tracking platforms.
The company confirmed the issue on Wednesday night, announcing around 10:30 p.m. Eastern time that service had been restored. In a statement, a Verizon spokesperson apologized for the disruption, acknowledging that customers were let down and promising further communication. Verizon also said it plans to offer account credits to affected users, with additional details to be shared soon.
Reports of the outage surged on Downdetector, a site that tracks user-submitted service problems. More than one million issue reports were logged over a 24-hour period, with activity peaking at over 178,000 reports within just 15 minutes. The most common complaints involved complete mobile phone failures and loss of signal, leaving many users unable to connect at all. Some customers reported their devices being stuck in “SOS” mode, while others said they had no access to data or basic calling features.
The outage appeared to hit large metropolitan areas hardest, including New York City, Atlanta, Charlotte, Houston, and Dallas. Verizon has not yet disclosed the specific cause of the failure, though industry experts say such disruptions can stem from a variety of issues, including faulty configuration changes or problematic software updates.
The incident adds to a growing list of high-profile technology outages that have disrupted daily life over the past year. Similar events have included a major Amazon Web Services outage that affected large portions of the internet and a widespread AT&T outage in 2024 that prompted an investigation by the Federal Communications Commission.
During the disruption, Verizon advised customers who were still experiencing issues to restart their devices in order to reconnect to the network. Some users were able to rely on alternative features such as Wi-Fi calling, which allows calls to be placed over an internet connection, provided the feature was enabled beforehand. Certain smartphones on Verizon’s network also support satellite text messaging, though those signals can be unreliable in areas with heavy building coverage or limited open space.
While some Downdetector users also reported issues with AT&T and T-Mobile during the outage, both carriers said their networks were operating normally. T-Mobile noted that its customers might still have trouble reaching Verizon users due to the disruption on Verizon’s end.
As service returns to normal, Verizon faces renewed scrutiny over network reliability at a time when consumers increasingly depend on mobile connectivity for work, safety, and everyday communication. With no official explanation yet for what caused the outage, customers and regulators alike are likely to watch closely for further updates in the days ahead.
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