Verizon is down in some places — live updates on the regional outage

A slight bump

Hmm... this outage won't just go away.

We just saw a bump after it finally dipped under 400 reports and is now slowly climbing again.

I am seeing claims on social media that people can't even get into Verizon's customer service for help.

We're investigating that matter.

Outage appears to be over

Unless something changes drastically, it looks like the outage is largely over.

Reports have gone down and we're not seeing anything change elsewhere.

Yes, the official status page still points to a 4 pm, Pacific.

We'll keep an eye on it for a little bit longer just in case.

Holding steady

For the past hour, reports have stayed steady around 500 at Down Detector.

We're not seeing as many outage claims from social media or comments though.

And the official status page still says service should be restored by 4 pm.

For now we're in a holding pattern.

Fix in the works

We checked the Verizon status page earlier today with both New York and DC addresses. At the time a "known" issue was acknowledged but said it would be resolved in about an hour.

Testing it again now, the estimated time to restore service has increased.

Currently, using a Los Angeles area code, the estimated time to restore service is set to nearly 4 p.m. Pacific or 7 p.m. Eastern.

Strangely it says the network disruption started on May 13.

Down Detector, meanwhile, has been hovering around 500 reports for the last half hour.

Things seem to be settling down

Reports on Down Detector are in steady decline, sitting around 500 as of this posting.

On social media we've seen people saying that service has been restored though that's digging through the chaff as more people are now mad at Verizon due to a recent report that the company is cutting back on diversity initiatives to curry favor with the Trump administration in ordered to get the FCC to approve the purchase of Frontier, a broadband internet company.

Is it over?

Could the outage be over?

Reports have dropped to 1,112 so it could be coming to a close.

The first downturn

Verizon might finally get better, as the Down Detector reports have decreased for the first time since this started. The latest update sees reports down to 2,264 when they peaked at 2,787.

There are still a significant number of reports, but the fact that it's declining could be a good thing for Verizon users struggling to use their mobile data.

Seems to be mostly data

Most users can make calls and send texts on Verizon, but they're having issues using mobile data. While that's not quite ideal, it's also good that users can at least make emergency calls and text loved ones if they need to.

Users are reaching out

As is always the case when there's a significant outage, users jump to X to complain about the problem. More often than not, those complaints are directed at the company in question's support account. In this case, users are contacting @VerizonSupport with their problems, such as in the post embedded above.

The Verizon support account hasn't offered much new information, only asking readers to reach out to them through a DM to discuss the situation.

New York City not on Verizon's website

I tried an address in Lower Manhattan and it showed the last Verizon outage as taking place on 5/5/2025, so it doesn't seem that the company has acknowledged the issue yet (or they're just straggler reports from another outage).

Verizon expected restore time

I picked a random address in Washington, D.C., to see if Verizon acknowledged an outage in the area. As expected, it did.

According to Verizon's Check Network Status page, an outage began in the area at 05/20/25 at 10:09 AM EDT. Regarding when it's expected to be restored, Verizon expects service to be restored on 05/20/25 at 10:44 PM EDT.

Problem areas

As is usually the case when a mobile carrier is dealing with an outage, it's not the whole country having issues. Instead, reports mostly focus on New York City, New Jersey and Washington D.C.

If you're in these areas, you might find that you can't connect to your mobile carrier.

Visible, too

Verizon-owned MVNO Visible is also having issues, based on the reports.

Obviously, the number of reports is much lower with Visible having a lower user base. Still, the number of reports isn't what matters for the people who are having issues using their phone; they can't use their phones, and that's a problem.

Even higher Down Detector reports

As soon as we published the outage report for Verizon, the Down Detector reports exploded to 2,262 — a jump of almost 1,000 from when the outage first began. It's clear that something is wrong with the mobile carrier and more users are realizing their mobile phone isn't working correctly and reporting the issue.

Verizon is down — the VZW outage begins

We're seeing a significant spike in reports for Verizon on Down Detector. As of this writing, there have been 1,644 reports, which is a substantial amount for the popular mobile carrier and is indicative that something is wrong.

As the outage continues to develop, we'll monitor it and keep you posted regarding the number of reports and what else is happening with the developing Verizon outage.