Following a nationwide service disruption yesterday that left many Verizon customers without cell service for several hours, the company confirmed that the issue has been resolved. "The outage has been resolved. If customers are still having an issue, we encourage them to restart their devices to reconnect to the network," Verizon told CBS News yesterday evening. The disruption, which generated over 180,000 outage reports at its peak on Downdetector, affected users across the country, from New York to California, with some reports indicating that devices were limited to SOS mode.
Verizon acknowledged the disruption in a public statement. "Today, we let many of our customers down and for that, we are truly sorry. They expect more from us," a Verizon spokesperson said in an earlier statement obtained by CBS News. The company also said that customers affected by the outage would receive account credits, with details to be communicated directly to them. While the full extent of the outage is not yet clear, Downdetector recorded a significant increase in problem reports related to the service disruption.
During the connectivity issues, New York City’s Emergency Management agency stated that essential city services were mostly unaffected. They recommended that Verizon customers experiencing outages use alternative options for emergency calls, including other carriers, landlines, or visiting the nearest police or fire station. A report from Gothamist indicated that, as of yesterday evening, no major disruptions had been reported for other carriers such as T-Mobile and AT&T.
Verizon has previously experienced service disruptions, with outages reported in August 2025 and October 2024. Following the latest incidents, New York State Assemblymember Anil Beephan Jr. requested that the Federal Communications Commission investigate the recurring Verizon service issues, citing public safety concerns, as reported by Gothamist. Verizon has not provided a detailed explanation for the outage, and the FCC has not yet responded to the request for an investigation.
