At a Glance
- A Verizon service outage that began around 11 a.m. CT Wednesday left customers in major cities unable to call or text
- More than 180,000 outage reports surfaced by 11:40 a.m. CT, according to DownDetector
- Service was not fully restored until about 10:20 p.m. ET, an 11-hour span
- Why it matters: The carrier will issue account credits to affected users but has not explained what triggered the failure
Verizon customers across several major U.S. cities lost the ability to make calls or send texts for much of Wednesday, with some devices showing only “SOS mode,” before the company restored service late in the evening and pledged account credits to those impacted.
The first widespread complaints surfaced around 11 a.m. CT, according to outage tracker DownDetector, which tallied more than 180,000 reports by 11:40 a.m. CT. Chicago was among the cities with the highest concentration of problem reports, though the exact scope of affected areas was not detailed.
Outage Timeline
Verizon acknowledged the problem in a series of posts on X, beginning around noon and continuing into the night:
- 11 a.m. CT – DownDetector shows spike in complaints
- ~12 p.m. CT – Verizon confirms an “issue” is affecting service
- 8 p.m. CT / 9 p.m. ET – Carrier posts apology, promises credits
- ~9:20 p.m. CT / 10:20 p.m. ET – Service fully restored
Throughout the day the company referred to the disruption only as an “issue,” offering no technical details on the cause. A late-evening update on X advised customers to restart their devices if problems lingered.
Company Response
Roughly an hour before full restoration, Verizon posted: “Today, we let many of our customers down and for that, we are truly sorry.” The message continued, “We will make this right-for any customer affected, we will provide account credits and share updates soon.”
Verizon repeated the credit pledge in a follow-up message after service returned:
> “The outage has been resolved. If customers are still having an issue, we encourage them to restart their devices to reconnect to the network. For those affected, we will provide account credits. Details will be shared directly with customers. We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience.”
What Happens Next
The carrier has not disclosed how it will calculate credits or when customers will see them. No information has been released about the root cause of the outage, and Verizon did not respond to additional questions from News Of Philadelphia.
Key Takeaways
- The outage lasted about 11 hours, based on DownDetector data and Verizon’s own timeline
- Affected users should expect account credits, though amounts and timing remain undisclosed
- Verizon says simply restarting a device should resolve any lingering connectivity issues
