Customers of the telecom giant Verizon began reporting cellular outages around the United States beginning around noon ET on Wednesday, saying they could not complete calls and did not have access to mobile data. Verizon broadband internet customers are also reporting issues. AT&T and T-Mobile customers also began reporting service outages in the same timeframe, however these reports may be linked to the Verizon outage.
Verizon spokesperson Christina Moon Ashraf told WIRED in a statement, “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.”
A T-Mobile spokesperson told WIRED in a statement that its service is “operating normally and as expected” but added that T-Mobile “customers may not be able to reach someone with Verizon service at this time.” An AT&T spokesperson similarly said its network “is operating normally at this time” and added that issues with service are due to a separate carrier.
The outage tracking site DownDetector showed spikes in reports of service disruptions for all three primary US mobile carriers.
Many customers on both iOS and Android devices report that their phones are in SOS mode, meaning that they can only make emergency calls. In practice, though, some reports indicate that the situation may also prevent 911 calls.
Washington, DC’s official emergency alert channel said in a post at 12:57 pm ET that DC’s Office of Unified Communications “is aware of a nationwide Verizon Wireless outage that may be affecting some users to connect with 911. If you have an emergency and cannot connect using your Verizon Wireless device, please connect using a device from another carrier, a landline, or go to a police district or fire station to report the emergency.”
Similar incidents have occurred in the past in which an outage at one carrier appears to involve multiple telecoms, because of collateral impacts when the telecom that is down can’t route calls and data from customers of other providers.
Syed Rafiul Hussain, a mobile network security researcher at Purdue University in Indiana, speculates that the outage may stem from a server configuration issue in Verizon’s core network. “It is unlikely a coordinated attack against the Verizon network,” he told WIRED.
