Customer Reporting Service Issues – NBC New York

Verizon wireless customers took to the internet and social media to report service issues Monday morning.

Starting around 9:30 a.m. Monday, Verizon outage reports began circulating on Downdetector.com. As of 10:40 a.m., more than 80,000 reports had been filed on the site, coming from across the country, including New York, California and Michigan. Around the same time, searches related to Verizon also spiked on Google.

Some customers complained that their phone went into “SOS” mode, which Apple says means your phone is not connected to a cellular network.

Is there a Verizon network outage?

Verizon released a statement to NBC News: “We are aware of an issue affecting service for some customers. Our engineers are dedicated and we are working quickly to identify and resolve the issue.”

The telco responded to users on its support account saying “Hello! I know how frustrating this can be and how important it is to have reliable service. Send us a DM today to address any concerns you may have.”

Users also reported problems accessing Verizon’s support page on its website.

What is SOS mode?

Emergency SOS allows iPhone users to automatically call emergency services and provide them with their location when they don’t have cell service.

iPhone users can also create emergency contacts who will receive a text message about the user’s location after the emergency call ends. Emergency services will receive location change updates for a limited time after the user enters SOS mode. If a user has disabled location services, they will temporarily be enabled automatically.

Once the location is shared, users will be reminded to stop sharing their location every four hours for 24 hours. To turn off location sharing, users can tap the status bar and select “Stop Emergency Location Sharing.”

Users can also notify emergency services via satellite on all iPhone 14 models or later when cellular service or Wi-Fi is unavailable. iPhone 14 or later and Apple Watch also have crash detection.

How to call emergency services in SOS mode

For iPhone 8 or later:

1. Press and hold the side button and one of the volume buttons until the “Emergency SOS” slider appears.
2. Drag the Emergency Call slider to call emergency services. If you continue to hold down the side button and volume button instead of dragging the slider, a countdown will begin and an alarm will sound. When you release the buttons after the countdown, your iPhone will automatically call emergency services.

For iPhone 7 or earlier:

1. Press the side (or top) button five times in rapid succession. The Emergency Call slider appears.
2. Drag the Emergency SOS slider to call emergency services.