Verizon Outage Leaves Phones in SOS Mode

Cell service for many Verizon customers failed on Wednesday, with users reporting their phones were displaying no bars or "SOS." Verizon, which NBC News reports is the country's largest wireless carrier with more than 146 million customers, acknowledged an outage affecting both data and voice service starting around midday Eastern time. Verizon "engineers are engaged and are working to identify and solve the issue quickly," the company posted on X just after 1pm ET. "We understand how important reliable connectivity is and apologize for the inconvenience."

In a post made on X just minutes after the Verizon post, Downdetector reported 460,000 user-generated reports of an outage; USA Today reports commenters on X cited experiencing the outage in states including North Carolina, New York, New Jersey, Louisiana, and Tennessee. NBC News reports Washington, DC, officials reacted to the outage. Residents received a message from the AlertDC emergency notification system that read, "If you have an emergency and cannot connect using your Verizon Wireless device, please connect using a device from another carrier, a landline, or go to a police district or fire station to report the emergency."