NEW YORK — Verizon said the company plans to “make it right” with millions of customers, including many in New York, who were unable to use their phones for most of the day due to a massive outage Wednesday.
The company acknowledged the inconvenience the outage caused to more than 1.5 million customers who were unable to make calls and send or receive text messages for about 10 hours Wednesday. Their phones displayed “SOS only.”
The company said in a statement that customers affected in the outage will get a credit on their bills. “Details will be shared directly with customers,” Verizon said. “We sincerely apologize for the disruption.”
On Thursday, Verizon added: “Yesterday, we did not meet the standard of excellence you expect and that we expect of ourselves. To help provide some relief to those affected, we will give you a $20 account credit that can be easily redeemed by logging into the myVerizon app. You will receive a text message when the credit is available. On average, this covers multiple days of service. Business customers will be contacted directly about their credits. 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. If you’re still having trouble connecting, please restart your device (power down and power back on). This is the fastest way to reconnect your phone to the network.”
Verizon continued: “We are sorry for what you experienced and will continue to work hard day and night to provide the outstanding network and service that you expect from Verizon.”
Verizon first addressed the issue with a post on X Wednesday afternoon: “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.”
Downdetector, which lists user-submitted reports of outages, indicated that thousands of users were impacted Wednesday afternoon. Many turned to social media and reported seeing “SOS” on their phones.
Verizon updated customers throughout the day as its engineers worked to correct the outage, which the internet monitoring company Cisco ThousandEyes told USA Today was “one of the most significant connectivity interruptions in recent memory.”
“Today, we let many of our customers down and for that, we are truly sorry. They expect more from us,” the company said in one message on X. “We will make this right.”
Verizon didn’t say what caused the outage, but said there was no indication of a cyberattack.
Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr told Reuters after a congressional hearing Wednesday that the agency will review the outage “and take appropriate action.”