Major phone carriers across the United States have had a slew of outages in recent months and yesterday Verizon was hit. A sudden spike in reports appeared on Downdetector, with more than 1,000 customers visiting the website to report smartphone issues.
Users also took to popular social media sites like X to let Verizon (and everyone else know) that their smartphone connectivity is having problems. While it looks like the cause of the issue was dealt with swiftly, there may still be some users that struggle.
Scroll through the posts below to see how the outage unfolded.
Up and down reports
Downdetector is seeing a massive spike in outage reports, with reports blowing past the baseline of 88. So far, we saw a peak of 1,257 reports before it declined slightly to 1,035.
The up-and-down nature of the reports leads us to believe that is a still a scattered outage that Verizon is working quickly to repair.
You can use this service to get a good idea of how many people have problems with their Verizon service. In fact, Downdetector is one of the first places people turn when something isn't working, so it's a great resource in a situation like this.
Eastern reports
Most of the reports seem to be coming from the eastern portion of US, with New York City serving as a hotbed. Washington, D.C., is also seeing a lot of user reports for this Verizon outage.
Connecticut and Massachusetts seem to have dodged the outage for the most part. There are small blips of outage reports in Boston, but the rest of the area seems to be okay with their Verizon service, at least for now.
Verizon acknowledges the issue
Verizon says that a fiber cut is causing issues for customers in "Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia." While we're seeing reports spring up a little further north into places like New York City, these areas are also shown on the outage map.
The @VerizonSupport account on X responded to a customer, saying, "A fiber cut has caused a service disruption for some Verizon wireless customers in parts of Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia. We are working to quickly to solve the issue."
Verizon's status site acknowledges outage
After posting on social media that there was an outage happening in three U.S. states, Verizon's status website has also acknowledged that there was a fiber cut that is negatively impacting the service of some users.
We used Pittsburgh, PA, a major city in the affected area to get the report. Other places in PA, WV and OH are also having problems with their service.
Here's what it says on the Verizon website: "A fiber cut has caused a service disruption for some Verizon wireless customers in parts of Ohio, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia. Our engineers are engaged and we are working with our vendor partners to quickly solve the issue."
Complaints on X
@Verizon @VerizonSupport Is there a network outage in Athens, OH?November 14, 2024
As is always the case when there's an outage like this, people are taking to social media to complain to the company in question. This one is no exception, as a slew of users are sending X posts to Verizon's customer service account saying their service isn't working.
Most of these users seem to be in the three primarily affected states, which makes sense if that's where the fiber cable was reportedly cut.
Fios outage two days ago
A network issue early this morning disrupted service for some Verizon Fios customers in the Northeast for a short period of time. As soon as the issue was identified, our engineering teams quickly restored the service.November 12, 2024
Unsurprisingly, users aren't happy about the situation at Verizon when there was just an outage a couple of days ago. T-Mobile's outage took most of the headlines because it happened during prime time, but Verizon had one in the early hours that left users in an uproar about their Fios service not working.
In an X post on November 12, Verizon said, "A network issue early this morning disrupted service for some Verizon Fios customers in the Northeast for a short period of time. As soon as the issue was identified, our engineering teams quickly restored the service."
Hopefully, the company is able to resolve its mobile outage by fixing the impacted fiber cable quickly so its customers can get back online and using their phones agian.
Straight Talk outages coming in
Several smaller carriers, known as MVNOs, rely on Verizon's network. Straight Talk is a popular carrier that uses Verizon's towers. As such, we're seeing a spike in reports from Straight Talk users that seems to coincide with the main Verizon being down.
Normally, Straight Talk hovers at four reports. Currently, it's sitting at 142. While that doesn't sound high, the relatively small user pool is a sizable percentage, mainly when the outage is primarily focused in three states.
Because carriers typically offer network priority to their own post-paid users, Straight Talk (and other Verizon MVNOs like Visible and Xfinity Mobile) may be seeing network deprioritization to help with the outage in WV, OH and PA.
An upswing
It looks like there's been an uptick in the number of reports for the first time since the Verizon outage started. It has remained steady for the last hour or so at just under 600 reports, but it jumped suddenly to 643 after 3:00 p.m. ET.
Whether that means other areas are affected or Verizon is taking other users offline while it fixes the issue isn't known yet. Still, it's something we'll continue to watch, as it was starting to seem like the downtime might come to a close for a while there.
Staying steady
@VerizonSupport Wireless service is down in Gallipolis Ohio. Any idea when it will be back up and what’s going on?November 14, 2024
At this time, there doesn't appear to be new developments in the ongoing Verizon outage. The Verizon website still says, "Our engineers are engaged and we are working with our vendor partners to quickly solve the issue."
We're unsure how long it will take for Verizon to restore service, though we've reached out to Verizon's PR department to find out if there's an end in sight for those dealing with the outage.
In the meantime, we'll keep our eyes on Downdetector and social media to see if there are any new developments in the Verizon outage and if it starts spreading to other areas.
Outage blamed on cut fiber line
ATTENTION: Kanawha County Metro 911 is alerting about a Verizon Wireless outage due to a fiber line getting cut causing disruptions. At this time, Verizon does not believe this affects the ability to call 911. There is no estimated restoral time. pic.twitter.com/vYiIZzVN4iNovember 14, 2024
The X account for the Kanawha County government, which is in West Virginia, reported that a cut fiber line is to blame for the current outage affecting people in the area.
The image they posted appears to come from Verizon.
Emergency service should still work, which means your phone is likely in SOS mode, but can't make normal calls.
No change
It is now 4:30 p.m. eastern, and there is no status change.
The Verizon website still reports, ""Our engineers are engaged and we are working with our vendor partners to quickly solve the issue."
We have not seen a timeline for Verizon to restore service. We have reached out to Verizon PR to determine when service might be restored.
Meanwhile, Downdetector has stabilized around 400 reports in the last hour. The issue does not appear to be spreading. We'll keep checking social media and Verizon's sites to in case something changes.
Outage has lasted over four hours
It is now 5:00 p.m. Eastern and the states of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Kentucky and West Virginia remain affected by the cut fiber line.
We have not received any updates from Verizon via social media or the PR department.
The Verizon website still has the same message about service being down and engineers working on the issue.
Unfortunately, there is no timeline for when service will be returned.
Try VoIP, as outage continues
With no end in sight for the outage affecting people in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Kentucky and West Virginia, it may be timed to tur to VoIP services like Google Voice.
Check out our guide on how Google Voice works and how it can help during cell service disruptions.
There are other services like but Google Voice is free. If you're internet goes out, you're out of luck but it is a backup for when service goes down.
Unfortunately, nothing has changed
Unfortunately, whatever cut caused the ongoing Verizon outage in several east coast states is still broken.
We have not received an update from Verizon.
Customers on X still appear to be without service. The Verizon website still retains the same outage message from earlier.
If you have internet service, Wi-Fi calling should still work and we recommended looking up VoIP services earlier.
It has been 5 hours since service initially went down.
Outage appears nearly settled
We still do not have an official word on whether or not Verizon has resolved the cut fiber problem from earlier today.
However, Down Detector's reports has settled under 200 for the first time since the outage began.
We've also seen a slow down in complaints on social media, though people are still chiming in about their phones being stuck in SOS mode.
The Verizon status page still reports that engineers are working on the problem.
Tom's Guide will keep an eye on things and update this story if anything changes. For now, things remain in a holding pattern.
Everything should be working
Last night at 8:23 p.m., Tom's Guide received a statement from Verizon that the outage had been resolved.
Here's what the spokesperson said: "The network disruption in parts of Kentucky, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia is largely restored. Our engineers are working with our vendor partners to repair the remaining sites that are out of service. Please visit our Check Network Status page for updates on service in your area."
If you're in the area and still have issues, you might have to wait longer. Still, most people in the four affected states should have cell signals fully functioning, and the Downdetector reports back that up, with Verizon being back to its baseline now.
