Unauthorized shutdown reportedly caused Verizon outage as service is "fully" restored

UPDATE:Verizon has “fully restored” service which was out across much of the country earlier today. According to an unconfirmed message on DownDetector by someone claiming to be a “tech tier 2” rep at Verizon, the outage was caused by an unauthorized shutdown of the electrical grid targeted at cell towers all across the U.S. The shutdown was done “slowly and systematically” according to the post.

Message on DownDetector from alleged Verizon tech gives an unconfirmed reason for the outage. | Image credit-Mashable

The complete part of that message states, “It has been confirmed that the issue was caused by an unauthorized shut down of the electrical grid specifically targeted at the cell towers all across the US, It seems to have been done by slowly and systematically shutting down these lines, sort of like a spider building its web. At first, it was just local, then state, region, and now nationwide. Affecting not only Verizon, but other carriers as well, to a smaller capacity as they were just subs on the main Verizon towers.”

Take the above message with a grain of salt as it has not been confirmed by Verizon. The carrier did announce that service has been “fully restored” via a Tweet.

“Verizon engineers have fully restored today’s network disruption that impacted some customers. Service has returned to normal levels. If you are still having issues, we recommend restarting your device. We know how much people rely on Verizon and apologize for any inconvenience. We appreciate your patience.”-Verizon statement

The original story follows:

Many iPhone users on the Verizon network had their devices stuck on SOS mode with those three letters appearing on the status bar of affected iPhone models. If you see those letters on your iPhone, it means that the device is not connected to your cellular network but emergency calls can still be made. Verizon has 114.2 million subscribers in the U.S. and not all of them were affected by the outage. Many Verizon users that yours truly spoke with today had regular service throughout the entire day.

“Verizon engineers are making progress on our network issue and service has started to be restored. We know how much people rely on Verizon and apologize for any inconvenience some of our customers experienced today. We continue to work around the clock to fully resolve this issue.”-Verizon spokesman talking to CNN

On DownDetector, the number of complaints from Verizon customers soared from 205 at 9:22 am ET to a peak of 104,440 just two hours later. At 6:52 pm ET, the number of complaints had fallen to 3,637 which is still indicative of an outage according to the website. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) threw its 2 cents into the situation when it posted a message on “X” this afternoon that said, “We’re aware of a Verizon outage impacting customers in parts of the country. We are working to determine the cause and extent of these service disruptions.”

Tweet from the FCC comments on the Verizon outage.

The FCC comments on the Verizon outage which is still going on for some subscribers. | Image credit-FCC

While service is being restored in some areas, it is still out for many. A Verizon customer in Peoria, Arizona said at 7:22 pm ET that his service was still down even though Indiana was back on at 7:11 pm ET. At the same time, Santa Cruz, California also regained service. While LTE connectivity is available in New Mexico, 5G service remains down in that region.