Verizon Offers $20 Credits After Hours-Long Nationwide Wireless Outage

NEW YORK — Verizon said on Thursday it would give customers affected by a lengthy service outage a $20 credit, a day after a disruption left many users across the United States unable to place calls or send text messages for hours.

The nation’s largest wireless carrier acknowledged the failure in a statement, saying it had not met the standard of excellence its customers expect. The company said the credit was not meant to make up for what happened but was intended to acknowledge customers’ time.

How the Outage Unfolded

According to outage tracking site Downdetector, Verizon customers began reporting interrupted service around noon Eastern time on Wednesday. At its peak, Downdetector logged at least 178,284 reports from Verizon users. Many customers said on social media that their phones displayed “SOS” in place of the usual signal bars, indicating the devices could only reach emergency services through other networks.

Downdetector said the heaviest concentrations of reports came from New York City, Atlanta, Charlotte and Houston. By about 3:30 p.m. Eastern time, the number of reports had fallen below 60,000. Shortly after 4 p.m., Verizon said on social media that a team was on the ground working to fix the problem.

Verizon said late Wednesday that the outage had been resolved and advised anyone still experiencing problems to restart their devices to reconnect to the network. The company had earlier said it was prepared to work through the night to restore service.

Emergency Calls Affected

New York City Emergency Management said the outage was affecting some users trying to call 911. Officials urged people who could not connect on a Verizon device during an emergency to use a phone from another carrier or a landline, or to go in person to a police precinct or firehouse.

The disruption to emergency calling is likely to draw attention from regulators, who have previously scrutinized carriers after network failures that left customers unable to reach 911.

No Sign of Cyberattack

Multiple law enforcement agencies spent hours examining whether the outage could have resulted from a cyberattack. Law enforcement sources told ABC News there was no indication that a cyberattack was to blame. Verizon did not immediately provide a detailed explanation of the cause.

Claiming the Credit

Verizon said most affected consumer customers could accept the $20 credit by logging into the myVerizon app. Business customers will be contacted directly by the company.

Large-scale wireless outages have become a recurring concern as Americans rely more heavily on mobile phones for work, banking, navigation and emergency communication, and as many households have dropped landline service altogether. Wednesday’s disruption, which affected major metropolitan areas across several regions, underscored how dependent daily life has become on uninterrupted cellular connectivity.

Consumer advocates have long called on carriers to be more transparent about the causes of outages and to compensate customers automatically when service fails. Verizon’s credit offer requires customers to accept it through the app rather than being applied to all accounts by default.