Verizon customers report widespread outages, with mobile phones limited to SOS mode

Verizon clients throughout the U.S. reported issues accessing the corporate’s wi-fi community, with some reporting Monday morning that their telephone service was down and restricted to SOS mode. 

As of 10:11 a.m. ET, greater than 100,000 reviews of Verizon outages had been logged with DownDetector, a web site that tracks service outages for telecommunications suppliers, web sites and different companies. 

Outages have been reported from New York to Los Angeles, with the primary criticism linked to lack of service on clients’ cellphones. Clients started reporting issues shortly after 9 a.m. ET, with some turning to social media to ask Verizon for refunds. 

“It has been over two hours and we do not even know why that is occurring. All of us pay a fairly penny for our Verizon invoice, this time ought to be compensated till the difficulty is totally resolved,” one buyer posted to Verizon’s buyer help account on X.

Folks throughout the nation stated their telephones had no service aside from SOS mode.

“SOS in Ohio since mid-morning. Was engaged on my drive into work, however went down a number of hours in the past and hasn’t come again,” one person wrote on DownDetector. 

When is Verizon coming again up?

In an preliminary assertion emailed to CBS MoneyWatch, Verizon stated its engineers have been “working shortly to determine and remedy the difficulty.” 

In a later replace emailed to CBS at about 5 p.m. ET, Verizon stated that service was starting to be restored to clients. 

“Verizon engineers are making progress on our community concern, and repair has began to be restored,” the spokesperson stated. “We all know how a lot folks depend on Verizon and apologize for any inconvenience a few of our clients skilled at present. We proceed to work across the clock to totally resolve this concern.”

What’s SOS mode? 

Cell phones will typically swap to SOS mode after they’re having hassle connecting to a wi-fi community. Because the title suggests, SOS mode means the telephone can nonetheless make emergency calls, corresponding to 911, by connecting to different carriers, in response to Apple.

Some clients complained on social media that the outage is making it unattainable for them to make use of 2-factor authentication, which is when an organization sends a code by way of textual content to a buyer’s cell phone throughout login as an added safety precaution. The shopper then makes use of the code to entry an account, corresponding to monetary companies account or work e mail — in addition to their Verizon accounts.

“Additionally how can I log into my verizon account if I can not confirm who I’m by getting a textual content due to an outage?” one person wrote on X. 

The outage seems to be affecting each iPhone and Android customers, in response to tech web site Bleeping Pc.

As of 4:30 p.m. ET, Verizon’s publish on X concerning the outage had drawn greater than 7,000 responses, many from clients asking for updates and expressing anger concerning the disruption. Some famous they have been unable to make enterprise calls or reschedule appointments due to the service disruption, with many purchasers vowing to modify carriers. 

“As quickly as this downside is mounted I am canceling my service,” one buyer wrote in response to Verizon’s X publish. “Principally as a result of you’ve gotten but to say what the reason for that is … and it is not simply ‘some clients.’ It is on a really vast scale.”