Hundreds of thousands of Verizon Wireless customers across the United States reported outages with the company’s network on Monday. Many users reported that they could not access the cellular network and were limited to using SOS mode.
According to DownDetector’s website, over 100,000 Verizon outage reports had been submitted as of 10:11 a.m. on Monday. The majority of the outage reports on Monday pointed to a lack of mobile phone service. DownDetector’s website shows that Verizon customers began reporting issues with the cellular network just after 9 a.m. and that the problem continued into the afternoon.
In a post on X, formerly Twitter, one Verizon customer complained, “It’s been over two hours and we don’t even know why this is happening. We all pay a pretty penny for our Verizon bill, this time should be compensated until the issue is fully resolved.”
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CBS News reported that Verizon users across the country complained that their phones did not have any service except for the SOS mode. According to a support page on Apple.com, SOS mode is activated when a phone cannot connect to the user’s cellular network. While the phone cannot make calls like normal in SOS mode, SOS mode still allows phones to make emergency calls, such as 911.
“SOS in Ohio since mid-morning,” one user wrote on DownDetector’s website. “Was working on my drive into work, but went down several hours ago and hasn’t come back.”
According to CBS News, Verizon customers also complained that the cellular outage was preventing them from using two-factor authentication, which typically provides an extra layer of security for users while logging into their Verizon accounts, email accounts, and various financial services.
In a statement on X, Verizon confirmed that it was aware of the cellular issue on Monday. “We are aware of an issue impacting service for some customers,” Verizon News tweeted. “Our engineers are engaged and we are working quickly to identify and solve the issue.”
Addressing the cellular outage on Monday, CNN cited a telecommunications expert who recently explained that cellular outages are usually caused by glitches with software updates, overloaded cellular networks in major cities, and multiple different technical problems.
