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Verizon outage impacts 100,000 plus users across US

Tens of thousands of Verizon users across the western half of the United States started their Monday morning without mobile service, with the outage still impacting users into late afternoon.

Verizon van

Image by Karolis Kavolelis | Shutterstock

Stefanie Schappert
Stefanie Schappert Senior Journalist
Sep 30, 2024 Updated: 30 September 2024 2 min read

Tens of thousands of Verizon customers across the western half of the United States started their Monday morning without mobile service, with the outage still impacting users into late afternoon. The FCC has now launched an investigation.

Cybernews update: After a roughly ten-hour outage affecting multitudes of users, Verizon said it has “fully restored today's network disruption that impacted some customers.”

“Service has returned to normal levels. If you are still having issues, we recommend restarting your device. We know how much people rely on Verizon and apologize for any inconvenience. We appreciate your patience," the mobile carrier posted on X at about 7:30 p.m. Eastern Time (ET), finally ending a day-long saga for frustrated users.

Verizon users began reporting issues with their cell service at about 9:30 a.m. ET in the US, according to the internet monitoring site Downdetector.com.

“We are aware of an issue impacting service for some customers,” Verizon posted on its X support account around lunchtime.

“Our engineers are engaged and we are working quickly to identify and solve the issue,” the post said.

Outages have been reported across at least nine major cities across the western half of the US including; Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Phoenix, Denver, Indianapolis, Indiana, Omaha, and Minneapolis, with Chicago and Seattle the hardest hit.

Monday afternoon, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) said it was investigating the Verizon network outage.

“Still showing SOS. Verizon keeps disconnecting my calls and their online support just freezes up,” posted Jeremy A. from New Mexico around 10:00 a.m. ET.

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At its peak of 11:15 a.m. ET, at least 100,405 users had reported issues with Verizon wireless service. By 1:00 p.m. ET, that number had been reduced to just over 50,000 users still experiencing problems, Downdetector showed.

About half of Verizon customers said they encountered problems with their mobile phone service, another 35% reported no connection signal, and about 15% declared a complete blackout.

Verizon outage Downdetector
Downdetector.com. Image by Cybernews.

“Service for myself and five other people I know that are with Verizon are completely down in Arvada, Colorado since 8:00 a.m. MST,” Verizon user Paige posted on Downdetector.

“Same in Pennsylvania,” user MandM posted, while user Bobby Whitworth said there was “No signal in PHX AZ entire valley.”

Other Verizon users on social media also described their phones were stuck in "SOS" mode, which Apple says will appear in the status bars of iPhones if the device is not connected to a cellular network but can still make emergency calls through other carriers.

“Is @Verizon down for anyone else right now? My service disappeared at 10am and no amount of restarting or switching into + out of airplane mode is helping with the signal. Zero service,” New York radio DJ Scott Stabbert posted on X.

A small number of AT&T outages were also reported by users on Downdetector. But on X, AT&T said the reports are “likely reflecting challenges our customers are having attempting to connect to users on another network."

Verizon has not said specifically what has caused Monday's disruption, but is currently facing major challenges trying to restore services for millions left without power and cellular service from deadly Hurricane Helene, which made landfall over the weekend flooding entire communities.

The catastrophic storm devastated at least ten states across the Southeastern United States, although Monday’s outage seems unconnected.

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