Starting around noon on Wednesday, many Verizon customers discovered that their phones had gone into SOS mode. Now, Verizon has acknowledged the ongoing outage.
In a statement to Mashable, a Verizon representative said, “We are aware of an issue impacting wireless voice and data services for some customers. Our engineers are engaged and are working to identify and solve the issue quickly. We understand how important reliable connectivity is and apologize for the inconvenience.”
The Verizon Support account on X also shared the same message on Wednesday afternoon, as confused customers took to social media seeking answers.
So far, Verizon has not indicated the cause of the problem or the timeline of a potential fix.
The platform Downdetector categorized the outage as “Very High,” describing it as a “massive service outage.” (Disclosure: Mashable and Downdetector are both owned by Ziff Davis.)
“The impact is categorized as Very High, with the majority of users reporting Mobile Phone issues (63%) and a complete lack of signal (31%),” reads an update from Downdetector provided to Mashable (emphasis in original). “User feedback frequently cites devices entering ‘SOS mode,’ indicating a high-severity disruption to cellular connectivity.”
When in SOS mode, customers are not able to make or receive phone calls or texts, and data services are also unavailable. However, customers should still be able to make emergency 911 calls via satellite, as per usual.
While Downdetector did receive a spike in user error reports for T-Mobile and AT&T, at this time, Verizon seems to be the only major mobile carrier suffering an outage.
This is a developing story…
