NEW YORK (AP) \u2013 Many Verizon customers encountered a widespread outage on Wednesday, disrupting calling and other cellular services across the U.S.<\/p>\n
The New York-based carrier acknowledged<\/a> that there was an \u201cissue impacting wireless voice and data services.\u201d Verizon didn\u2019t specify what was causing the disruptions, but said in an update<\/a> shared on social media that it had deployed its engineering teams and was working to resolve the problem \u201cas quickly as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n Outage tracker Downdetector showed that Verizon customers began to report issues with their service around noon E.T. Reports appeared to peak at more than 175,000 by 12:30 p.m. ET \u2014 but still remained elevated later into the afternoon, sitting at nearly 68,000 as of 2:30 p.m. ET. <\/p>\n Impacted customers said they saw \u201cSOS\u201d or other no signal messages on their phones. In cities like New York, warnings were sent out noting that the outage may disrupt 911 calls \u2014 urging residents try landlines or a device from another carrier, if available, in case of an emergency, or visit local police or fire stations in person.<\/p>\n \u201cNetwork has been out … they say they\u2019ve already corrected it, but we\u2019re still having trouble connecting to it. A lot of people have been coming through here,\u201d said Diane Torres, who was outside the parking lot of the Verizon store on Broadway trying to get her phone to work.<\/p>\n \u201cFor our prescriptions, for our doctors, it\u2019s just been a pain,\u201d Joe Torres said.<\/p>\n