There is a major Verizon outage being reported across large parts of the U.S. today, and whether it affects you depends on your specific location and service type. The fastest way to know ā€œis there a Verizon outage near meā€ is to check an outage map plus Verizon’s own status page and then test your phone or home internet.

What’s going on today

  • A widespread Verizon wireless outage has been reported, with hundreds of thousands of users seeing loss of voice and data service or phones stuck in ā€œSOSā€ mode.
  • The issues started around midday (Eastern time) and are affecting many major cities, while some customers in the same areas still have normal service.
  • Verizon has acknowledged a problem with wireless voice and data and says engineers are working to fix it, while apologizing for the disruption.

How to check if it’s near you

Use these quick checks to see if the outage is affecting your area specifically:

  1. Check a live outage map
    • Go to a third‑party outage site that shows a Verizon outage map and a heatmap of problem reports (look for big red clusters near your city).
 * If your city or region is lit up with lots of reports in the last hour, there is likely an outage near you.
  1. Check Verizon’s official status page
    • Visit Verizon’s service outage / status page for wireless or home services; you can usually enter your ZIP to see if there’s a ā€œknown outageā€ in your area and any repair ETA.
 * Verizon also posts generic outage acknowledgments and sometimes suggests signing up for outage alerts and updates.
  1. Test your own devices
    • Try:
      • Placing a normal voice call to a non‑emergency number.
      • Sending a text message and using mobile data (e.g., loading a website with Wi‑Fi off).
    • If you see ā€œSOSā€ or ā€œNo Serviceā€ on cellular but Wi‑Fi works fine, and others nearby on Verizon have the same issue, it is very likely part of the wider outage.

What you can do meanwhile

  • Use Wi‑Fi where possible
    • Turn on Wi‑Fi calling in your phone settings if available; this may let you call and text even while the Verizon cellular network is down in your area.
  • Avoid unnecessary account changes
    • During large outages, line resets or SIM swaps usually do not help and can complicate things; it’s typically better to wait for the network fix unless Verizon support specifically instructs you otherwise.
  • Monitor updates and forums
    • News outlets and social platforms are tracking the outage as it evolves, including reports of phones stuck in SOS mode and service gradually returning in some places.
* Community forums and local posts can give a sense of whether neighbors or people in your city are still down or starting to recover.

Bottom note: Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.