Verizon wireless customers across the country were slammed by a massive network outage Wednesday morning that knocked tens of thousands of phones into SOS mode and left users unable to make calls, send texts or access mobile data.
The disruption began surfacing shortly after 9 a.m. EST and rapidly escalated, with outage-tracking site Downdetector logging more than 113,000 reports at its peak as complaints poured in from coast to coast.
Users in major cities including New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston and Washington, DC, reported total signal loss, failed calls and dead data connections, according to Downdetector.
Verizon acknowledged the outage in a brief statement, saying it was aware of an issue impacting service for some customers and that engineers were working to resolve it.
The company had not disclosed a cause or timeline for full restoration as of Wednesday afternoon.
