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NEW YORK, January 15, 2026: If you experienced cell service outages yesterday you weren\u2019t alone as thousands of Verizon customers were without telephone for hours on Wednesday. Many were also without internet service. The Verizon outage impacted over 100,000 of its customers. Customers\u2019 phones would display the SOS mode and not allow them to make or receive telephone calls during the service outage. Internet users were unable to connect online.<\/p>\n
Several local governments advised<\/a> Verizon customers to use a landline or Wi-Fi calling. Landline subscribers in the U.S. have been steadily declining<\/a> from almost 180% market penetration in 1999 (includes business lines) to less than 80% last year. Today, less than 25%<\/a> of American households have a landline.<\/p>\n Verizon customers in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Phoenix, New York, Seattle and Washington seem to have been the most affected yesterday according to online reports. Customers in Texas and El Paso were also affected by the outage.<\/p>\n The outage led New York State Assemblyman Anil Beephan to post<\/a> on his social media that he has asked the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to investigate \u201cthe ongoing and repeated service outages affecting Verizon Wireless customers\u201d in his district.<\/p>\n FCC Chairman Brendan Carr told<\/a> Reuters yesterday that the FCC was aware of the outage and would \u201ctake appropriate action\u201d after a review of the incident.<\/p>\n The outage began around 10:30 in the morning and lasted until around 8:20 in the evening.<\/p>\n Verizon said<\/a> that it will be providing account credits to its customers affected by the ten-hour outage. Verizon acknowledged that they \u201clet many of our customers down and for that, we are truly sorry,\u201d after outrage over the outage intensified online hours after Verizon hadn\u2019t restored service for its users.<\/p>\n No word yet on what kind of compensation Verizon customers can expect.<\/p>\n The company says that any Verizon customer still experiencing problems this morning should restart their telephones so that their phones will reconnect to Verizon\u2019s network.<\/p>\n The Bundling No No<\/p>\n Telephone service providers routinely offer discounted prices if the customer bundles internet and telephone services under one account. Verizon has been pushing its bundling discount<\/a> to its customers in the recent months.<\/p>\n Although the discount may seem attractive, when a company like Verizon experiences a service outage, it is likely to affect the range of services the company provides. Yesterday\u2019s Verizon outage affected not just customers\u2019 telephone services but also the Wi-Fi services bundled with the phone service leaving subscribers without Wi-Fi and telephone service for hours yesterday.<\/p>\n Experts<\/a> on connectivity caution against bundling services together because of the shared service risk of an outage. Offering customers bundling discounts is cost effective for the companies because the capacity to provide the services remains the same when a household bundles services, but it increases revenues for the company.<\/p>\n When a household of four people bundles telephone and Wi-Fi service together, the capacity to provide service to the four individuals remains largely the same while increasing the revenues for the company. But when services are interrupted like yesterday\u2019s Verizon outage, both the telephone and Wi-Fi services stop working leaving the household without connectivity.<\/p>\n Verizon\u2019s Outages and Customer Churn<\/p>\n Verizon has experienced problems with its service in recent years affecting many of its customers. In November 2024, Verizon\u2019s internet was down<\/a> for millions of its internet customers in east coast cities like Boston and New York. Other mass outages have occurred over the last couple of years.<\/p>\n Yesterday\u2019s outage was nationwide.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/civis_polls_1.png\")
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Screenshot of Downdector Verizon outage chart for January 14, 2026.<\/p>\n