Major Verizon outage plagues wireless customers across the South, Midwest

Verizon customers were plagued by a sudden lack of connectivity across much of the South and Midwest today as the country’s largest wireless provider grappled with a widespread outage. Verizon acknowledged the issue in a tweet earlier this afternoon, saying the outage affected “some markets in the south.”

Verizon Wireless is currently experiencing an intermittent voice, text and data services interruption for customers in some markets in the south. Our engineers are aware of the issue and are working diligently to resolve it.

— Verizon Wireless CS (@VZWSupport) September 25, 2018

However, reports on Twitter show many users in the Midwest and upstate New York appear to be affected too. A snapshot from the website Down Detector shows wide swaths of red in those regions as of mid-afternoon on Tuesday.

It’s unclear how widespread the issue is, if the outages are related, or when customers can expect service to resume. I’ve reached out to Verizon for more info and will update if I hear back.

To Verizon’s credit—or at least to the credit of its social media team—its customer service Twitter account seems to have spent the last hour frantically responding to angry users, assuring them that the company’s engineers are working hard to restore service. Cold comfort, perhaps, when you’re waiting for an important text, but at least it’s something.