Verizon’s network is experiencing technical issues that are affecting calls and wireless data. Verizon customers on the
Based on the experience of Verizon users on Engadget’s staff, the services affected appear to be calls and wireless data. Text messages will continue to be delivered normally, at least for some users. On DownDetector, reports of the Verizon outage began to increase around 12 p.m. ET and numbered in the thousands at its peak.
DownDetector also shows spikes in outage reports on competing networks like AT&T and T-Mobile, but in terms of magnitude, they are much smaller than the problem Verizon is facing. For example, Verizon reached 181,769 reports, while AT&T reported only 1,769. The difference between the two is so big that those AT&T reports could be from people trying to contact Verizon customers thinking there was a problem with their private network.
In a post on the cell provider’s news account on X, Verizon acknowledged problems with its network. “We are aware of an issue impacting wireless voice and data services for some customers,” Verizon wrote. “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.”
Based on DownDetector’s map of outage reports, Verizon’s network issues appear to be concentrated in major cities in the eastern United States. Most reports appear to be coming from Boston, New York, and Washington DC, although the map also shows growing hot spots in Chicago, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.
At 2:14 PM ET, Verizon shared on Twitter that its engineering teams are “fully deployed” to work on fixing the outage. The company did not share when the issue would be resolved or how many of its customers are currently affected. Reports on DownDetector have decreased since their peak at 12:43 PM ET, but thousands of Verizon customers are still seeing problems with the service.
As of 3:09 p.m. ET, Verizon has not yet shared further details about the recovery of the company’s cell network. Some Verizon customers on the
At 4:06 PM ET, nearly two hours after the company’s last statement, at least one member of Engadget’s staff reported that their service had been restored. However, connectivity issues are still affecting Verizon customers. DownDetector recently received more than 55,000 outage reports as of 3:47 pm ET.
Verizon posted at 4:12 PM ET that work is continuing on addressing the outage, but the problem has not been completely fixed. According to the company, its team is “actively working today to fix the service issue that is affecting some customers.”
As of 4:52 PM ET, Verizon’s network has been experiencing problems for nearly four hours, making today’s outage almost as long as the company’s last major outage in 2024. Like the 2024 outage, Verizon has not yet shared what exactly caused the problems with its network. Without an official update, it is safe to assume that the company is still working on fixing the issue.
At 5:41 PM ET, DownDetector’s latest tally still shows more than 46,000 people reporting problems with Verizon’s network. Based on the platform’s map, the same cities are reporting the majority of outage reports, although reporting appears to be more widespread than before as news of the outages spread across the country.
The situation was almost the same at 6:20 PM ET. Thousands of users (including Engadget editors) still don’t have proper service, and Verizon hasn’t updated its customers since 4:12 PM ET. There have been reports of intermittent service coming back up and then failing again but no real solution appears to have been implemented.
At 10:20 PM ET, Verizon announced that the outage had been resolved and encouraged customers to restart their devices to reconnect to the network. The company also said it would provide account credits to affected customers.
Both T-Mobile and AT&T have confirmed that their own networks are unaffected by the problems faced by their competitors. In a post on X, T-Mobile shared that its network is “operating normally and as expected.” Meanwhile, AT&T says for any of its customers experiencing problems, “it’s not us…it’s other people.”
Update, January 14, 7:25 pm ET: This article was published as a developing story and was updated several times over a period of approximately seven hours. These updates were additive, and were noted with timestamps within the article. As of writing, Verizon is still down for thousands of users and the company’s support team has not issued any updates on the situation in over three hours. happy Wednesday!
Updated Jan. 14, 10:39pm ET: This story has been updated to add the latest update from Verizon that the outage has been resolved.
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