Verizon users experience phone disruptions, as devices are confined to emergency SOS functions
Several states across the United States, from California to Florida, experienced wireless service disruptions on Saturday, as reported on social media and DownDetector. The outage, which affected thousands of Verizon customers, was confirmed by the telecommunications giant, who attributed the issue to a software problem.
According to DownDetector's data, customers began reporting problems shortly after 12 p.m. Eastern Time on Saturday. The United States was the most affected country, with the strongest reports of outages occurring between 12:00 PM and 3:30 PM ET. This peak usage period in the Eastern time zone led to more users experiencing and reporting the issues during that window.
The number of reports peaked around 3:30 p.m. ET, with nearly 23,000 reports, according to DownDetector's data. Many customers across the country reported having no wireless service except for SOS mode. This limited functionality allowed phones to make emergency calls, such as 911, by connecting to other carriers, according to Apple.
Verizon's engineers worked diligently to identify and solve the issue. The company provided updates on service in specific areas through their Check Network Status page. By 9 p.m. ET, Verizon stated that they were starting to see service restoration in impacted areas.
This is not the first time Verizon has experienced such an outage. In October 2024, a similar incident resulted in over 100,000 reports on DownDetector. One customer reported that their entire family, along with their L.A. friends who also have Verizon wireless service, were affected.
Verizon apologised for any inconvenience caused by the outage. Kiki Intarasuwan, a news editor for our News & Stations, and Aimee Picchi contributed to this report.
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