SOS MODE

Major Service Outage Spawns Cell Crisis for Thousands Across the U.S.

A Verizon outage has impacted at least 175,000 customers for the better part of Wednesday.

Thousands of Verizon’s U.S. customers have experienced connectivity issues since early Wednesday morning. The outages have primarily affected users in urban areas across the United States, with the majority of outage reports coming from cities like New York, Atlanta, and Chicago. ABC News reports that during the outage’s peak, more than 175,000 customers of the nationwide carrier were affected, though that number has since decreased. The first reports of users’ phones going into SOS mode, unable to call and text, date back to 9 a.m. ET, according to the New York Post. In a 1 p.m. statement on X, Verizon stated that they had been made aware of the outages and that their “engineers are engaged and are working to identify and solve the issue quickly.” At 2 p.m., Verizon customers on social media continued to report connectivity problems. Verizon also sent out an update on the continuing disruptions: “Our teams remain fully deployed and are focused on the issue.”