Verizon’s January 14 Blackout: The 10-Hour ‘SOS’ Event Explained
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While cellular data outages aren’t entirely uncommon, one on the scale that affected many Verizon customers yesterday is. On January 14, as many as two million Verizon cellular customers found themselves without data and cellular services, including the ability to make emergency calls.
The majority of outages were reported along the East Coast, beginning as early as 10 am EST. However, the outage was nationwide, affecting metropolitan areas such as Houston, Chicago, Phoenix, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Seattle. I was one of the Verizon customers affected, and it was incredibly frustrating. Me at work without any cell phone service:#VerizonOutage pic.twitter.com/Bhq7gC2ptC
Verizon acknowledged the outage and promised a full review of what happened, but they have yet to share specific details. Causes of a mobile network outage can include technical glitches, server failures, infrastructure damage, and cyberattacks. So far, Verizon has acknowledged their engineers identified and addressed a software issue — specifically a server failure in New Jersey — rather than a cyber event.
In a post on X today, Verizon stated,
Yesterday, we did not meet the standard of excellence you expect and that we expect of ourselves. To help provide some relief to those affected, we will give you a $20 account credit that can be easily redeemed by logging into the myVerizon app.
If you’re a Verizon customer, here’s how to redeem the credit.
Those Verizon customers with an iPhone running iOS 16 or newer who experienced the outage likely saw “SOS Only” in their status bar, indicating that their device was disconnected from the Verizon network but could still make emergency calls on other carrier networks that weren’t affected by the outage. While this feature is a lifesaver for emergency connectivity, seeing it in the middle of a major city was a stark reminder of how total the service loss felt.
As the news trended on X, other brands saw an opportunity to capitalize on the frustration, and it went beyond the obvious carrier rivals; even Krispy Kreme got in on the action.
Krispy Kreme advertised a free doughnut yesterday between 5 and 7 p.m. via an Instagram post asking, “SOS got you down?…because some days need a sweet backup plan you can rely on.”
T-Mobile naturally also joined in on the fun. While some T-Mobile customers reported outages, the company was quick to correct them.
This is the first major service disruption I’ve experienced in well over a decade as a Verizon customer, so it’s hard to complain. Still, it underscores the potential severity of future disruptions that could arise from failing infrastructure, or worse, a cyberattack. Hopefully, all mobile carriers see yesterday’s outage as an opportunity to double down and keep customers connected. The Federal Communications Commission is also looking into the matter and has promised to take action if necessary. We’ll see what that looks like and be sure to keep you posted.
