Verizon Wireless customers across the US experienced an outage today, which started at around 9:30 am ET.
The affected users flocked to DownDetector to report the problem. The issue seemed to spike at around 11:20 am. The problem was also detected mostly in New York, New Jersey, Georgia, and throughout the east coast and midwest.
Most of the complaints said they were unable to send a text message and make or receive a call. iPhone users also experienced a problem getting a signal since they saw “SOS” instead of the connection bars on their screen. These users were still able to make an emergency call through other networks.
At 11:48 am, Verizon confirmed the issue on X and that its “engineers are engaged and we are working quickly to solve the issue.” The cause of the outage was not revealed yet. By afternoon, outage reports continued to be reported on DownDetector, which prompted the wireless carrier to release an update on the outage:
“Verizon engineers are making progress on our network issue and service has started to be restored. We know how much people rely on Verizon and apologize for any inconvenience some of our customers experienced today. We continue to work around the clock to fully resolve this issue.”
By 5:04 pm, Verizon gave the good news that its “service has started to be restored.” The complaints on DownDetector had also started to go down.
Finally, by 7:18 pm, Verizon announced that they had“fully restored today’s network disruptions.” Verizon did not reveal yet what caused the problem, but as reported by PhoneArena, an alleged Verizon tech said:
“It has been confirmed that the issue was caused by an unauthorized shut down of the electrical grid specifically targeted at the cell towers all across the US, It seems to have been done by slowly and systematically shutting down these lines, sort of like a spider building its web. At first, it was just local, then state, region, and now nationwide. Affecting not only Verizon, but other carriers as well, to a smaller capacity as they were just subs on the main Verizon towers."
This has not yet been verified by Verizon.
Source: Engadget
