Update: Ongoing Verizon outage leaves tens of thousands without cell service Wednesday evening

Update- 6:30 p.m. Tens of thousands of Verizon wireless customers remain without service nearly seven hours after a massive outage knocked out service to at least 180,000 Verizon customers across the country at about 11:45 a.m. Wednesday.

As of 6:30 p.m. the number of customers reporting outages had fallen to just under 45,000, according to the DownDetector website, which tracks outages. An outage map depicting customer reported outages showed the largest concentrations of customers without service were in metropolitan areas along the East Coast. Remaining outages were also reported this evening on the West Coast and in Houston, Texas.

Original post:

Verizon customers are reporting mobile service outages across the U.S. this afternoon.

Anyone seeing “SOS” where service “bars” or “5G” typically appear cannot make or receive calls.

The outage began shortly before 12 noon ET, according to the website DownDetector, which tracks outages.

In a statement posted to X at 1:07 p.m. ET, Verizon said, “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. We understand how important reliable connectivity is and apologize for the inconvenience.” It has not posted anything further as of the time of publication of this article.

Outages are affecting more than 175,000 Verizon wireless customers, according to DownDetector, with reports coming in from New York, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Georgia, and Texas. Customers on Long Island, including Riverhead, are also reporting service outages.

Verizon wireless customers are also reporting being unable to sign into the Verizon website. Some customers are experiencing data outages as well.