At a Glance
- A 10-hour Verizon outage froze voice and data service across the U.S.
- The carrier will automatically place a $20 credit on affected customer bills
- Restarting devices remains the quickest fix for lingering connection issues
- Why it matters: The disruption knocked out 911 access for many, prompting a lawmaker to demand a federal probe
Verizon is handing out $20 account credits after a nearly day-long network failure on Wednesday left millions without calls, texts, or mobile data. The blackout, which started around noon ET and stretched past 10 p.m., paralyzed the nation’s largest wireless carrier and triggered calls for a federal investigation.
The $20 Credit: How to Get It
Customers will see the credit in their accounts and can claim it through the myVerizon app. Verizon stressed the payment is not meant to offset the full impact of the failure.
“Yesterday, we did not meet the standard of excellence you expect and that we expect of ourselves,” the company said in a statement posted to social media site X.
“This credit isn’t meant to make up for what happened. No credit really can. But it’s a way of acknowledging your time and showing that this matters to us.”
Lingering Issues? Restart Your Phone
Some subscribers were still offline Thursday morning. Verizon advised them to power-cycle their devices, saying a reboot is the “fastest way to reconnect your phone to the network.”
Political Fallout and Potential Probe
New York State Assembly member Anil Beephan, Jr. urged Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr to open an investigation, citing risks to public safety.
“The outage had a significant and unacceptable impact on public safety, including disruptions to reliable access to emergency communications and critical response systems,” Beephan wrote.
He added that repeated instability at a major carrier “raises concerns about the resiliency and reliability of our greater communications infrastructure.”
Regulators on Watch
The FCC acknowledged the disruption on Wednesday, saying it was monitoring the situation. Commissioner Anna Gomez said she would ask the agency’s Consumer and Public Safety bureaus to “keep a close eye on this situation and investigate the source of this service disruption.”
Neither the FCC nor Verizon has disclosed what caused the outage. Verizon did not answer questions from Sophia A. Reynolds about the root of the failure.
Timeline of Events
| Time (ET) | Event |
|---|---|
| ~12:00 p.m. Wednesday | Reports of widespread voice and data failures surge |
| Afternoon | FCC says it is “aware” of the Verizon outage |
| After 10:00 p.m. Wednesday | Service gradually returns for most users |
| Thursday morning | Verizon announces automatic $20 credits |
Key Takeaways
- The outage lasted roughly 10 hours, affecting both consumer and business lines
- Emergency services in some regions reported 911 call failures during the peak of the disruption
- Verizon has not explained the technical cause, leaving customers and regulators seeking answers
- The $20 credit will appear automatically; no action is needed unless customers still have connectivity issues, in which case a device restart is recommended
