Verizon customers across the country were taken offline yesterday as a massive network outage cut out cell service entirely for many customers for several hours, but Verizon says that “account credits” will be sent out to those affected.
Network outages aren’t an uncommon occurrence, but widespread, long-lasting outages like the one Verizon customers faced yesterday are exceptionally rare.
Just prior to 1pm ET on January 14, Verizon customers started reporting en masse that their phones were unable to connect to mobile data, or even phone calls and SMS. iPhone users saw nothing but a “SOS” icon, while Android users were left with a cross-out on their network icons. Outside of Wi-Fi, it left phones useless.
It wasn’t until 10:20pm ET – going on 10 hours later – that Verizon finally confirmed that the issue had been resolved, telling subscribers to “restart their devices to reconnect to the network” if they were still having issues.
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. Details will be shared directly with customers. We sincerely apologize for the disruption.
Verizon has yet to publicly confirm the reason for the outage, but the carrier says that “details will be shared directly with customers” and that “account credits” will be sent to those affected. It’s unclear what those credits may be worth. In a smaller outage last year, one customer was offered a $33 credit on calling Verizon’s customer support.
We’ll have to wait and see what Verizon offers to customers. Let us know in the comments below how the outage impacted you.
Follow Ben: Twitter/X, Threads, Bluesky, and Instagram
FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.
