Update: Around 7 p.m. EDT on April 20, Verizon released the following update announcing that normal service had been restored to most customers:
A fiber issue in the core of the network caused some of our customers to experience intermittent call failures today. The issue was identified and resolved by Verizon engineers and the majority of impacted customers should be seeing service as usual. If any customer is still experiencing lingering issues, please restart your device. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.
Previous report:
On April 20, 2022, the wireless provider Verizon experienced an outage that left users unable to make phone calls with their cellphones while other users were able to still access the internet and send text messages. It appeared to occur sometime around 2 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time (EDT), according to the service tracking website DownDetector. At the time of this writing, the site noted that nearly 24,000 users were affected.
A look through the Verizon website did not show any statements on the outage. As of this publication, the provider has not publicly acknowledged on Twitter that the service was down, nor did the company release specific information about the outage. In an emailed statement to Snopes, Karen Schulz of the Global Network & Technology Communications department said, "We are aware of an issue impacting voice calls for some Verizon customers. Our engineers are engaged and we are working quickly to identify and solve the issue."
However, Snopes has not received further clarification as to what prompted the outage and whether consumers should expect to be reimbursed for disrupted service. We will update this article accordingly.
That didn’t stop social media users from lamenting online:
In response to the above tweet, a Verizon support member named “Shelly” did not acknowledge the outage, but instead wrote that “it’s crucial to ensure your phone service is always working. For further assistance, please follow and send us a DM.”
Other users across the country reported that they haven’t been able to make phone calls for over an hour:
A DownDetector map published by CNET showed outages coast to coast, including in major cities like Atlanta, Washington D.C., Denver, Minneapolis, New York City, and Philadelphia.