Verizon says network disruption is resolved; FCC probing outage

Verizon fully restored a network disruption that impacted thousands of customers in the U.S. on Monday, the company announced, hours after the Federal Communications Commission said it would investigate the network outage.
More than 100,000 outage reports were submitted to Downdetector, a website that tracks tech outages, earlier on Monday. By 8 p.m. ET, outages reduced to roughly 2,500 reports.
In a post on X, Verizon said that engineers resolved the disruption, and service has returned to “normal levels.”
“If you are still having issues, we recommend restarting your device,” the post read. “We know how much people rely on Verizon and apologize for any inconvenience.”
Earlier, the company said it was “aware” of the issue impacting customers. Verizon spokesperson Ilya Hemlin told USA TODAY earlier Monday that engineers were “working quickly to solve the issue.”
The Federal Communications Commission announced that it was working to determine the cause and extent of the disruptions. T-Mobile and AT&T officials said their respective networks are working, CNET reported, and issues their users may have experienced could’ve resulted in trying to connect with a Verizon user without a working service. 
Atlanta, Chicago, Phoenix, Omaha, Nebraska, and Washington D.C. were some of the cities with the most reports about service issues, according to Downdetector. Users took to social media to question the apparent service outage.
“Is @Verizon down for anyone else right now? My service disappeared at 10am and no amount of restarting or switching into + out of airplane mode is helping with the signal,” one person posted on X Monday.
Sector rival AT&T faced nationwide wireless outages in February that lasted over 12 hours and impacted more than 70,000 customers. The FCC is also investigating the AT&T outage, which blocked more than 92 million voice calls and prevented more than 25,000 attempts to reach 911, the agency said.
News of the Verizon outage came hours after the company announced a deal to give infrastructure firm Vertical Bridge rights to lease, operate, and manage 6,339 mobile towers across the U.S. for $3.3 billion.
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This story has been updated to add new information.
Contributing: Minnah Arshad, USA TODAY; Reuters
Natalie Neysa Alund is a senior reporter for USA TODAY. Reach her at [email protected] and follow her on X @nataliealund.