- Verizon confirmed an outage impacting wireless voice and data services for some customers on Wednesday.
- Downdetector reports peaked around 172,980 at about 12:30 p.m. ET and were still above 120,000 around 1:22 p.m. ET.
- Outage reports were logged in multiple large metro areas, including New York City and Washington, D.C.
Verizon customers across the U.S. reported wireless service problems Wednesday, with voice calls and mobile data dropping for some users. Verizon acknowledged the outage and said its engineers are working to restore service.
This matters because a modern phone outage isn’t just “can I call someone.” It can break two-factor login codes, app-based work tools, rides, maps, and even basic coordination—right in the middle of the day.
The spike showed up fast on Downdetector, a crowdsourced outage-tracking site that aggregates user reports. The site showed 172,980 outage reports around 12:30 p.m. ET, falling to 120,628 by 1:22 p.m. ET. Fox Business
Reports were spread across multiple major metro areas, with New York City and Washington, D.C. among the places seeing large volumes of complaints. Chicago, Atlanta, Houston, Los Angeles and Portland were also listed among cities generating outage reports.
Downdetector’s breakdown suggested the problems weren’t limited to one corner of the network. Most reports were categorized as mobile phone issues, followed by “no signal,” with a smaller share tied to data-related problems.
Verizon’s public messaging has been cautious, focusing on restoration rather than details. The company said it understands how important connectivity is for customers and apologized for the disruption.
In an update posted in the early afternoon, Verizon said engineering teams were still addressing the service interruptions and that teams remained deployed on the issue. The company didn’t publicly pin the outage to a specific cause in that update.
The outage also lands in a world where carriers are under pressure to prove reliability, not just speed. Verizon previously experienced a nationwide wireless outage in September 2024 that affected more than 100,000 users, with some customers reporting their iPhones were stuck in SOS mode and others seeing dropped calls.
That 2024 incident drew scrutiny from the Federal Communications Commission, and Fox Business noted Verizon had reached a settlement with the FCC earlier that year related to 911 outages in six states, paying more than $1 million and entering a compliance plan.
What’s still unclear: how many customers were actually impacted versus how many reported issues, and whether the disruption affected emergency calling in any way. Crowdsourced reports are a useful signal, but they don’t map cleanly to subscriber counts—and until Verizon explains the root cause, it’s hard to say what would prevent a repeat.
More coverage is also available here: NBC News
