Verizon still working to resolve network issue snarling cellphone service for thousands

By David Shepardson and Harshita Mary Varghese

WASHINGTON, Jan 14 (Reuters) – Verizon Communications’ network was down for tens of thousands of users in the U.S. on Wednesday, preventing people from making calls or texting from cell phones and prompting two major cities to advise residents to use other providers to make emergency calls.

The U.S. wireless carrier said it was working to address the issue that was impacting cellphone users across the country.

“Our teams remain fully deployed and are focused on the issue,” Verizon said. “We understand the impact this has on your day and remain committed to resolving this as quickly as possible.”

Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr told Reuters after a congressional hearing the agency will review the issue “and take appropriate action.”

New York City told residents the outage may affect some users trying to call 911. “Call using a device from another carrier, a landline, or go to a police/fire station to report emergencies,” the city said on X. The District of Columbia issued a similar alert.

There were more than 180,000 incidents of people reporting issues with Verizon’s services at the peak just before 1 p.m. ET, according to Downdetector, which tracks outages by collating status reports from a number of sources, including user-submitted errors on its platform. That number had fallen to around 93,000 about an hour later.

There were also reports of more than 1,700 incidents each for T-Mobile and AT&T services, according to Downdetector.

AT&T and T-Mobile did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the outages.

The actual number of affected users may differ from what is shown on Downdetector, as the reports are submitted by users.

Verizon had faced a nationwide wireless outage in late 2024 that impacted over 100,000 users at its peak. The outage drew the FCC’s attention after several services were affected and iPhone users were stuck in “SOS” mode.

(Reporting by Harshita Mary Varghese in Bengaluru; Editing by Sahal Muhammed and Bill Berkrot)