Verizon's communications network has suffered a major outage affecting wireless service throughout the US. Mobile phone users from New York to Seattle have lost all cellular service, including the ability to make calls or send text messages. According to outage-tracking website Down Detector, Verizon's service started experiencing widespread problems just before 12 noon ET on Wednesday. Daily Mail's attempts to contact Verizon were not answered, and an automated message revealed that the company was dealing with 'an emergency condition.'
Wireless Disruption Sparks Panic Among Customers
In a statement on their X account, Verizon Support wrote: '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. We understand how important reliable connectivity is and apologize for the inconvenience.' Thousands of Verizon customers have reported that their smartphones are stuck in SOS mode, meaning they have no connection to Verizon's network and can only make emergency calls to 911, send emergency texts, or use satellite features if available on their device. The outage has already caused many customers to panic as the disruptions have cut off vital lines of communication between them and loved ones.
'Lines are down... son who is home sick in York, Pa and on our plan is unreachable as well when I call from landline,' one Verizon user in Pennsylvania reported.
This is a breaking story. More details to follow. According to Down Detector, the largest areas knocked offline by the nationwide outage in New York, Washington DC, Chicago, and Seattle. 'Phone just randomly went SOS, calls failing and slow service,' another person in Philadelphia said Wednesday afternoon. However, customers on social media have reported that their service has also gone out in North Carolina, Texas, Georgia, Arizona, California, and Florida.
Customers Report App and Website Access Failures
'Down in North Mississippi, even the website is down,' another person wrote online, noting the issues Verizon customers have had accessing the company's app and outage tracking webpage. Verizon users also revealed that the problem seemed to be random, affecting some customers throughout the US but not others. Some on social media claimed that they had two or three separate Verizon plans in their household, but only one or two were impacted by the outage while the other phone was still working.
'Just sits on SOS and when someone calls my number it won’t go to voicemail, it just says "the caller is unavailable." But my daughter, who has an iPhone 12 on my plan, has service; mine is an iPhone 14 pro,' one resident in Dallas revealed.
Down Detector also tracked similar outages affecting T-Mobile and AT&T starting at around the same time on Wednesday; however these network disruptions were much smaller than the one plaguing Verizon.