Verizon's Hours-Long Outage Leaves Thousands Without Service, but Situation Has Been Resolved.
Thousands of Verizon customers experienced an extended period of interrupted service, preventing local 911 calls from being processed in the process. This disruption lasted for several hours and affected a significant number of users across key cities such as Atlanta, Charlotte, Houston, and New York City.
The Verizon outage garnered widespread attention on social media platforms with many users reporting a 'SOS' message instead of typical network signal bars on their phones. As of 3:30 pm EST, fewer than 60,000 customers were still experiencing the disruption according to Downdetector.
NYCEM officials earlier issued a statement saying that Verizon was working to resolve the issue and advised users in emergency situations to use alternative methods such as another carrier's device or landline to contact authorities.
Multiple law enforcement agencies initially investigated the possibility of a cyberattack behind the outage, but ultimately concluded it was caused by a server failure in New Jersey.
The federal government agency responsible for cybersecurity, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, has taken over the inquiry and is now referring all queries to Verizon.
Following the incident, Verizon officials stated that they are working to rectify the situation. In addition to resolving the service issues, the company will also offer account credits to those affected by the outage.
As of late Wednesday night, Verizon announced that the disruption had been resolved with customers being advised to restart their devices in order to reconnect to the network if any further difficulties arose.
Thousands of Verizon customers experienced an extended period of interrupted service, preventing local 911 calls from being processed in the process. This disruption lasted for several hours and affected a significant number of users across key cities such as Atlanta, Charlotte, Houston, and New York City.
The Verizon outage garnered widespread attention on social media platforms with many users reporting a 'SOS' message instead of typical network signal bars on their phones. As of 3:30 pm EST, fewer than 60,000 customers were still experiencing the disruption according to Downdetector.
NYCEM officials earlier issued a statement saying that Verizon was working to resolve the issue and advised users in emergency situations to use alternative methods such as another carrier's device or landline to contact authorities.
Multiple law enforcement agencies initially investigated the possibility of a cyberattack behind the outage, but ultimately concluded it was caused by a server failure in New Jersey.
The federal government agency responsible for cybersecurity, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, has taken over the inquiry and is now referring all queries to Verizon.
Following the incident, Verizon officials stated that they are working to rectify the situation. In addition to resolving the service issues, the company will also offer account credits to those affected by the outage.
As of late Wednesday night, Verizon announced that the disruption had been resolved with customers being advised to restart their devices in order to reconnect to the network if any further difficulties arose.
can't believe a major carrier like Verizon goes down for hours! Like what was going on behind the scenes? A server failure is pretty lame excuse, especially when you're dealing with emergencies and people's lives are at stake. 60k people were affected?! That's crazy! And why did it take so long to resolve? Should've been a priority 1 fix ASAP 
. Glad they offered account credits though, but still not enough after what happened. Verizon needs to step up their game and make sure this kind of thing doesn't happen again 
It's crazy that an 'SOS' message was all they got on their screens instead of the usual bars! 
The fact that they're now offering account credits to affected customers is a decent consolation prize though.
. I'll still be keeping an eye on them, but at least they seem like they're committed to making it right 
so frustrating when tech companies like Verizon have outages that affect thousands of people... i mean who wants to be stuck without phone service for hours, especially during emergency situations? 
also, I'm a bit curious - how did the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) end up taking over the investigation into this server failure in New Jersey? 
I don't get why it took them so long to fix this basic problem... thousands of people were affected, some even had life or death situations where they couldn't reach 911 in time. so yeah, credit's not gonna cut it 
I mean, I've been there with my old flip phone when it died mid-conversation, but at least that was a straightforward problem to fix. 
. Glad they were able to get the issue sorted out eventually tho! 
And those account credits? Good move on Verizon's part! 
anyway good that its all fixed now, but still gonna keep an eye on 'em 
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or should I say they have Verizon landlines? 
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... I mean, i get it accidents happen and stuff but verizon should really know better than to have an outage that bad... what kinda server failure causes a whole city to go dark? 
... and now they're giving account credits, thats nice i guess 
and I'm low-key freaked out lol! Like what even is a server failure in NJ 
? And on top of that, 60k ppl still without service? That's wild 
. But tbh, at least it got resolved pretty fast 
Anyway, I'm glad everything is back up and running, but let's all take a deep breath and hope it doesn't happen again anytime soon 
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. I'm glad NYCEM stepped in and told users to use landlines or other carriers' devices... talk about a work-around 
can't imagine how scary it must've been for people trying to call 911 or something 
. it's good that they're taking responsibility and offering account credits, but like shouldn't this have happened before? or at least been communicated better to customers? anyway, glad the situation has been resolved now 
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