Verizon mobile service was down for thousands of customers across the United States on Thursday, according to outage tracking website Downdetector. The disruptions began around mid-morning Eastern Time and continued through the afternoon, with reports surging past 20,000 at the peak.

Outage Reports Spike

Downdetector, which collects user reports and network status information, showed a sharp increase in Verizon outage incidents shortly before 11 a.m. ET. By 1 p.m., more than 20,000 users had reported problems, compared with fewer than 50 on a typical day. The map indicated affected areas from New York to Los Angeles, with clusters in major metropolitan regions such as Chicago, Dallas, and Atlanta.

Users reported losing signal entirely, while others said calls dropped or texts would not send. Some customers said their phones displayed "SOS" instead of the usual signal bars. Social media posts showed complaints from both personal and business customers, some of whom said they could not use mobile data for work.

Verizon Responds

Verizon acknowledged the issue in a statement to CNBC. Sarah Rodriguez, a Verizon spokesperson, said the company was aware of the service disruptions and was working to restore full functionality.

"We are seeing an issue affecting some customers today," Rodriguez said. "Our engineers are investigating and we apologize for the inconvenience."

Rodriguez did not provide a reason for the outage. She added that customers who are still having trouble should restart their devices, as this can often reconnect them to the network. She also suggested toggling airplane mode on and off to force a fresh connection to the nearest cell tower.

Impact on Businesses

The outage affected not only consumers but also businesses that rely on Verizon for critical communications. Several small business owners took to social media to say they could not process credit card payments or receive customer calls. A coffee shop owner in Seattle said her mobile point-of-sale terminal was offline for more than an hour, forcing her to accept cash only.

In New York, a real estate agent told CNBC that he could not reach clients for scheduled property showings. Another user in Texas reported that his company's delivery drivers had no way to confirm routes because their phones could not connect to the network.

No Cause Announced

Verizon did not indicate whether the problem was related to a software update, equipment failure, or external factor. Network analysts following the situation said the outage pattern suggested a possible core network issue, but Verizon declined to comment further.

Maria Lopez, a telecom industry analyst at the research firm Meridian Communications, said the widespread geographic distribution pointed to a problem at the network backbone rather than individual towers. "When you see simultaneous reports across multiple states, it is usually not a single site failure," Lopez said. "It could be a routing or switching problem."

Lopez also noted that the lack of an official status page notice was not unusual, as carriers often delay posting updates until they identify the root cause.

What Customers Should Do

Verizon recommended that customers affected by the outage try a few steps. Beyond restarting the device, the company suggested toggling airplane mode on and off or updating network settings. In some cases, resetting network connections may help, according to the support team.

The carrier also said customers could use Wi-Fi calling as a temporary alternative. That feature lets users make calls over a wireless internet connection when cellular service is unavailable. To enable it, customers can go to their phone's settings and turn on Wi-Fi calling if their device supports it.

Verizon said it would provide updates as the investigation continued. The company did not give a timeline for when service would be fully restored.

Previous Outages

This is not the first time Verizon has faced a major service disruption. In 2021, the carrier had a brief outage that affected thousands of users. More recently, in 2024, a separate incident saw intermittent issues in several states. In both cases, Verizon restored service within a few hours and attributed the problems to internal network changes.

As of late Thursday afternoon, some users were beginning to report that service had returned, but Downdetector still showed elevated outage numbers. Verizon encouraged customers to report any ongoing issues through its official app or website.

The company said it was monitoring the situation and would communicate with customers once engineers resolved the underlying problem.