Verizon Mobile Outage Resolved, Services Restored in Michigan and Across US
Cellular Services Back Online After Hours of Disarray
On Monday, Verizon users in Michigan and throughout the US were impacted by a connectivity issue that caused their devices to display an “SOS only” status, rendering them unable to make regular calls. The company has confirmed that the issue has now been fully resolved, and normal service levels have been restored.
Verizon, in their statement, advised, “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.”
A Morning of Disrupted Connectivity
Problems began to surface around 9 a.m. with users in Detroit and across the nation reporting difficulties with their cellular services. The disruption manifested as an inability to make or receive calls, although text messaging services were unaffected for some customers.
The issue was not isolated to Michigan but was widespread across the Midwest, impacting areas including Indianapolis, Minneapolis, Omaha, and also major cities like Atlanta, Los Angeles, New York, Seattle, and Phoenix.
Outage Tracked and Addressed
Perturbed users took to Downdetector, a website that tracks connectivity issues, with reports of outages starting at about 9 a.m. and peaking at over 100,000 reports by 11 a.m. Later in the day, the numbers began to decrease, and by 5 p.m., they hovered around the 20,000 mark.
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC), acknowledged the situation, affirming their awareness of the connectivity issue affecting parts of the country. They stated on social media, that they were actively working to determine the cause and extent of the service disruptions.
By 5 p.m., Verizon announced that its engineers were making significant progress and restoration of services had commenced, with an apology offered for any inconvenience experienced by their customers during the outage.
Preemptive Measures implemented
In the light of the outage, certain preemptive measures were swiftly implemented. The Ford Field authorities, where a Lions-Seahawks match was scheduled, advised fans to access their electronic tickets via Wi-Fi prior to their arrival at the stadium. They suggested downloading the tickets into their mobile wallets for a seamless entry into the venue.
Outage Causes Speculations and Concerns
Verizon refrained from disclosing the causes or the number of affected users from this outage. Some conjectures made online suggest that the issue affected mostly users with newer phone models.
While the focus was primarily on Verizon, Downdetector also indicated minor service disruptions for AT&T, T-Mobile, and US Cellular users, albeit to a much lesser extent.
Verizon Outage Map
In the wake of the incident, Verizon provided an outage map on their website, which users could use to track the extent and progress of the issues. For this service, users were required to be logged into the website. Within the portal, users could find troubleshooting information, report problems, and receive a ticket number along with an estimated time of repair completion.
