Verizon restores service after major outage

Verizon resolves 10-hour outage, offers credits after millions affected

Published: 15 January 2026

Last updated: 15 January 2026

Reuters

Verizon Communications said late on Wednesday it had restored mobile phone service and planned to offer affected consumers credits for a 10-hour outage that disrupted calls, texting and internet usage for hundreds of thousands of customers.

Multiple major cities, including New York City and Washington D.C., warned residents that 911 emergency calls were affected and advised using alternative carriers or visiting police/fire stations directly.
Verizon apologized and announced it will provide account credits to all affected customers, while confirming there was no indication of a cyberattack.
The FCC will review the incident and "take appropriate action," with this being Verizon's second major nationwide outage since late 2024.

"Today, we let many of our customers down and for that, we are truly sorry," Verizon said. "The outage has been resolved. If customers are still having an issue, we encourage them to restart their devices to reconnect to the network. For those affected, we will provide account credits."

Verizon added that "if customers are still having an issue, we encourage them to restart their devices to reconnect to the network."

The outage prompted several major cities to advise residents to use other carriers to call emergency services.

Verizon did not disclose the scope of the disruption or the cause of the outage, but said there was no indication of a cyberattack.

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Downdetector, which aggregates data on service outages, said it had received 2.2 million reports over the last 24 hours related to the Verizon service disruption.

Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr told Reuters after a congressional hearing that the agency would review the issue "and take appropriate action." Democratic FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez said she would ask the agency to investigate.

New York City told residents the outage could affect some users trying to call 911 for emergency help. "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.

Some Verizon customers posted frantic messages on social media seeking updates on service restoration.

Verizon faced a nationwide wireless outage in late 2024 that affected more than 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.