An unauthorized shutdown reportedly caused Verizon to fail as service was “fully” restored

UPDATE:Verizon has “fully restored” the service, which was available across much of the country today. According to an unverified message on DownDetector from someone claiming to be a “Tech Tier 2” representative VerizonAccording to the post, the outage was caused by an unauthorized power grid shutdown that targeted cell phone towers across the United States. The shutdown was “slow and systematic.”

A message on DownDetector from a purported Verizon technician gives an unconfirmed reason for the outage. | Image Source: Mashable – Unauthorized shutdown has reportedly caused Verizon service to go down "full" restored

A message on DownDetector from a purported Verizon technician gives an unconfirmed reason for the outage. | Photo credit: Mashable

The full portion of this message states: “It has been confirmed that the issue was caused by an unauthorized power grid shutdown that specifically targeted cell phone towers across the United States. This apparently occurred through a slow and systematic shutdown.” These lines acted like a spider building its web. First it was just local, then state, regional and now not just federal Verizonbut also other network operators with lower capacity, as they were only extensions on the main line Verizon Towers.”

Take the above report with a grain of salt as it has not been confirmed by anyone Verizon. The carrier announced via a tweet that service had been “fully restored.”

“Verizon engineers have fully resolved today’s network disruption that affected some customers. Service has returned to normal. If you are still having problems, we recommend that you restart your device. We know how much people rely on Verizon and apologize for any inconvenience. We appreciate your patience.” statement from Verizon

The original story follows:

Many iPhone users on the Verizon The network's devices got stuck in SOS mode and these three letters appeared in the status bar of the affected iPhone models. If you see these letters on your iPhone, it means that the device is not connected to your cellular network, but emergency calls can still be made. Verizon has 114.2 million subscribers in the US and not all of them were affected by the outage. Many Verizon Users you actually spoke to today had regular service throughout the day.

“Verizon engineers are making progress on our network issue and service restoration has begun. We know how much people rely on Verizon and apologize for any inconvenience some of our customers may have experienced today. We continue to work around the clock to fully resolve this issue.”-Verizon spokesperson speaking to CNN

The number of complaints is displayed on DownDetector Verizon The number of customers rose from 205 at 9:22 a.m. ET to a high of 104,440 just two hours later. As of 6:52 p.m. ET, the number of complaints had dropped to 3,637, still indicating an outage, according to the website. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) threw its 2 cents into the situation when it posted a message on “X” this afternoon saying, “We are aware of a….” Verizon Outages affect customers in parts of the country. We are working to determine the cause and extent of these service disruptions.”

The FCC comments on the Verizon outage, which is still ongoing for some subscribers. | Image source: FCC

While service is resuming in some areas, it is still unavailable for many. A Verizon A customer in Peoria, Arizona, said at 7:22 p.m. ET that their service was still down, although Indiana was back up at 7:11 p.m. ET. At the same time, Santa Cruz, California also resumed service. While LTE connectivity is available in New Mexico, 5G service remains unavailable in this region.