A sweeping wireless outage that left Verizon customers across the United States unable to place calls, send texts or access mobile data is now being traced to a technical breakdown inside the company’s own network — not a cyberattack.

The disruption began around midday Wednesday and lasted more than 10 hours, sending hundreds of thousands of phones into “SOS” mode and sparking widespread confusion in major cities including New York, Houston, Philadelphia and Atlanta. At the height of the outage, tracking site Downdetector recorded well over 175,000 simultaneous reports of service failures, with more than a million logged throughout the day.

Law enforcement agencies initially explored whether the outage was caused by a hacking attempt, but investigators now believe the failure stemmed from a malfunction involving Verizon servers based in New Jersey, sources said. Verizon later confirmed that a software issue was responsible.

The outage disrupted daily life nationwide and raised safety concerns after New York City Emergency Management warned that some Verizon users were unable to reach 911, advising residents to use landlines, other carriers or seek help in person at police or fire stations.

By late Wednesday night, Verizon said service had been restored after engineers worked through the evening to stabilize the network. In a public apology, the company acknowledged falling short of customer expectations and said it had launched a full internal review to prevent a repeat.

Verizon also announced it will issue a $20 account credit to affected customers, calling the gesture a recognition of the disruption rather than a remedy for the inconvenience.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)