Verizon Wireless outage leaves US customers offline; cause not yet disclosed

Verizon Wireless customers across the United States experienced a major service disruption beginning around noon ET on Jan. 14, with many users reporting phones stuck in SOS mode and venting frustration on social media. The outage was ongoing as of this writing. Monitoring platform Downdetector logged a surge in error reports starting about 11:55 a.m.

ET and peaking around 12:45 p.m. ET, when it received 178,284 concurrent reports within a 15-minute period; the platform has received more than 1.7 million error reports in total. (Disclosure: Downdetector and Mashable are both owned by Ziff Davis.) Mashable reporters contacted Verizon, but the company has not provided a concrete explanation for the outage.

Verizon posted statements thanking customers for their patience and saying its engineering teams "remain fully deployed" to address the issue; a statement on X said the team was "on the ground actively working to fix today’s service issue." It is not clear where on the ground Verizon is working or what specific tasks crews are carrying out.

The underlying cause remains unknown; Mashable noted the problem could involve any part of Verizon’s telecommunications infrastructure or a third-party vendor, and it may be software, hardware or both. Verizon has blamed past outages on software issues, and the outlet said companies typically issue an initial update the day of a disruption and a more detailed report weeks later.

Key Topics

Tech, Verizon Wireless, Downdetector, Network Outage, Sos Mode, Telecom Infrastructure