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Verizon outage: Why your phone says SOS, what we know so far

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Updated on January 14th at 8:00 PM ET: Eight hours after the mobile outage began, Verizon has not provided any statement on the cause of the problem, and customers are still reporting lack of service. The problem is so serious that the Federal Communications Commission has now considered:

Updated on January 14 at 5:57 pm ET: Platform DownDetector has now received over 1.7 million user error reports for Verizon. By Wednesday evening, some Verizon customers reported service restored; However, many social media users are still complaining about the ongoing problems.

Verizon has not yet explained the source of the outage or provided a timeline for a possible resolution. On X, a Verizon support account suggested customers could get a discount on their phone bills based on the outage.

Updated on January 14 at 4:46 pm ET: Verizon issued a new statement Wednesday afternoon, saying its team is working on a solution.

“The Verizon team is actively working to fix today’s service issue that is impacting some customers,” the company posted on Twitter.

Updated on January 14 at 4:02 pm ET: As the Verizon outage continued, T-Mobile released a statement on X confirming that its own network was still operating normally:

At this time, only Verizon has confirmed the wireless network outage.

Updated on January 14 at 2:27 pm ET: Verizon released a new statement regarding its ongoing service disruptions. The company indicated that issues persist, but that it is working on a fix.

“Verizon engineering teams are continuously working to address today’s service disruptions,” the company wrote on Twitter.

On Wednesday afternoon, thousands of Verizon Mobile customers reported outages, with widespread service outages causing some customers’ phones to go into SOS mode.

User-reported issues increased on Downdetector around midday Eastern Time. (Disclosure: DownDetector is owned by Ziff Davis, the parent company of Mashable.)

“Verizon is currently struggling with Nationwide service disruption that has arisen 1 million reports (1,053,104) within the last 24 hours,” DownDetector noted in an update Wednesday afternoon. Most DownDetector users reported problems with either “total loss of signal” or “mobile phone failure.”

Verizon’s support page on X wrote that it is aware that users are having issues and is working on a fix. A representative for the company provided the same details to Mashable.

“We are aware of an issue impacting wireless voice and data services for some customers,” the account posted. “Our engineers are engaged and working to identify and resolve the issue quickly. We understand how important reliable connectivity is and apologize for the inconvenience.”

As the outage continued, users shared their frustration on social media.

What does SOS mean on your phone?

In short, when you see SOS on your phone, it means that you are not connected to the cellular network. The Apple Support page on the feature reads, “If you see SOS or ‘SOS only’ in the status bar, your device is not connected to your cellular network, but you can still make emergency calls through other carrier networks.”

In short, while affected customers will be unable to make or receive calls and texts, or access data services, they should still be able to place emergency 911 calls via satellite.

Are T-Mobile, AT&T having problems too?

Around the same time that user-reported problems increased for Verizon, the same trend occurred for T-Mobile and AT&T. Both services experienced a surge in reports on Downdetector. However, this doesn’t mean that carriers were necessarily experiencing the same problem confirmed by Verizon. DownDetector tracks user-reported problems, which may be in error or for a completely different problem.

What causes the Verizon outage?

So far, Verizon has not released any information about the cause of the January 2026 outage. However, this is not the first time Verizon customers have faced service disruptions.

Verizon Mobile customers also experienced brief outages in August and October 2025, which Verizon ultimately attributed to software problems. A service disruption in 2024 sent some Verizon customers’ phones into SOS mode.

This story is developing and will be updated as necessary…





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