Verizon outage disrupts service for customers across US

14 Jan 2026, 19:52 by Whitney Danhauer Parade · Las Vegas Review-Journal

A widespread network outage affecting Verizon Wireless customers across the United States disrupted phone calls, text messages and mobile data service, leaving many users with limited connectivity.

On Wednesday, January 14, 2026, reports of service problems began rising around late morning to early afternoon Eastern Time, with outage-tracking site Downdetector showing more than 130,000 incidents linked to Verizon at the height of the disruption. Users in major cities including New York, Chicago and Boston, as well as smaller communities across the country, reported issues with voice and data services.

During the outage, many Verizon customers saw the message “SOS” or “SOS only” in place of normal signal bars on their phones. This indicator means the device is not connected to its carrier’s network and cannot make typical calls or use mobile data. However, it can still dial emergency services.

Some users also noted that attempting to call Verizon numbers resulted in recorded messages telling callers that the “called party is temporarily unavailable.”

Verizon acknowledged the outage in posts on social media and its official channels.

“Our engineers are engaged and are working to identify and solve the issue quickly,” the company said in a statement. “We understand how important reliable connectivity is and apologize for the inconvenience.”

Kevin Carter/Getty Images

The outage also had a ripple effect on services that rely on cellular connections for verification codes or two-factor authentication, leaving some users unable to receive text updates from apps and accounts until connectivity returned.

Mobile data and voice service remained unreliable for many users throughout Wednesday afternoon. In some cases, customers were still reporting problems hours after the outage began, though the number of reports gradually declined as the day progressed.

The disruption is the latest in a series of high-profile network outages affecting major wireless providers, shining a spotlight on how dependent everyday life has become on mobile connectivity for communication, work and access to digital services. While Verizon has not yet said what caused this particular outage, it reassured customers that it is working to restore service to all affected areas.

If you’re experiencing outages, Verizon customers can check the company’s network status tools and may still be able to use Wi-Fi calling or messaging apps over Wi-Fi until cellular service is restored.