It‘s a frustration nearly every Verizon customer has likely experienced at some point – you go to make a call or browse the web on your phone and suddenly nothing works. Verizon is down, leaving you disconnected at the worst possible time.
For a carrier that touts itself as "America‘s most reliable network", Verizon has a surprising number of outages. According to data from Downdetector, Verizon averages around 200 outage or problem reports per month from customers. Some months see major widespread outages that leave thousands without service.
So what‘s really going on when the largest mobile carrier in the nation goes offline? As a Verizon customer myself, I decided to dig deep into the causes, impacts, and implications of Verizon‘s outage issues. Here‘s what I‘ve learned about why Verizon keeps going down.
A Primer on Verizon‘s Network Infrastructure
To understand why Verizon has outages, it helps to know a bit about how its massive network operates. Verizon provides wireless service to over 143 million subscribers across the United States through a nationwide 4G LTE network.
That network relies on over 50,000 cell sites equipped with radios, antennas, and other gear to provide your phone with a wireless signal. Those cell sites are connected to the broader internet and phone network via millions of miles of fiber optic lines.
Managing this sprawling infrastructure are multiple Network Operations Centers that monitor network performance 24/7. Highly complex backend hardware and software systems route calls, texts, and data to make everything work seamlessly (most of the time).
With such a large and complicated system, a lot can go wrong to bring parts or all of Verizon‘s network down. Hardware can fail, software can glitch, fiber lines can be cut, and cell sites can lose power or backup generators can fail. Severe weather, natural disasters, human errors, and even intentional sabotage can all wreak havoc.
When you consider all the potential points of failure, it‘s honestly surprising Verizon and other carriers don‘t have outages even more frequently. Modern mobile networks are engineering marvels, but are still vulnerable to a range of threats and issues.
Top Causes of Verizon Outages
After analyzing hundreds of Verizon outage reports from the past several years, some common culprits emerge:
1. Severe weather and natural disasters – Hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, wildfires and other extreme weather is a leading cause of Verizon outages. 2020‘s record-breaking hurricane season battered Verizon‘s network in the Southeast. Hurricane Laura damaged nearly 400 Verizon cell sites in Louisiana and Texas, leading to prolonged outages.
Besides directly damaging infrastructure, severe weather often knocks out power to cell sites. While most have backup batteries and generators, extended power outages can take them offline. Following 2012‘s Hurricane Sandy, Verizon COO had to acknowledge that "in many cases our backup generators were flooded or not fueled up" leading to widespread outages.
2. Physical damage to fiber infrastructure – For all the advances in wireless technology, mobile networks still heavily depend on old-fashioned wired infrastructure. Verizon‘s cell sites are connected by an extensive network of buried fiber optic cables. When a fiber line is cut, whether by construction crews, vehicle accidents, or vandals, it can bring down service to entire regions.
In April 2022, major Verizon outages across the Northeastern US were traced back to severed fiber lines in Brooklyn, NY. A single damaged fiber bundle triggered a cascade of failures. Weeks earlier, cut fiber lines knocked out Verizon service for much of Virginia. As Verizon‘s network grows increasingly fiber-dependent, these kinds of incidents are troublingly frequent.
3. Equipment failures – With tens of thousands of cell sites full of complex equipment, occasional hardware failures are inevitable. Outages blamed on "equipment issues" or "hardware problems" are common in Verizon‘s outage reports. Power problems are especially frequent, with backup generators and batteries proving less reliable than desired.
More rarely, total failures of critical routing equipment or data centers can cause huge outages. In March 2017, a failed router at a Verizon data center in Colorado brought down 4G service for over 2 million customers in several Western states. The outage lasted nearly 24 hours as Verizon scrambled to replace the faulty router.
4. Software bugs and configuration errors – As Verizon transitions to increasingly software-defined networking, code glitches and human errors have triggered some major outages. In 2016, a "technical glitch" during planned maintenance caused several hours of spotty 4G coverage across the US. A botched software update took down text messaging services for over 150,000 customers in March 2019.
Sometimes simple human errors have outsized impacts. In January 2022, a mistaken configuration change by a Verizon employee brought down home internet service for thousands of Fios customers. The employee accidentally deleted a routing protocol from multiple network aggregation routers, causing cascading failures. It took Verizon nearly a day to fully restore service.
How Verizon Handles Major Outages
For a company that stakes its reputation on reliability, Verizon takes network outages very seriously. Let‘s look at a recent example of how Verizon responded to a widespread service disruption.
On January 14, 2023, a major Verizon outage swept across the Southeastern US. Customers from Georgia to Virginia reported a complete loss of cell and mobile data service. At the peak, over 21,000 customers submitted problem reports on Downdetector.
Verizon quickly acknowledged the outage on social media, tweeting that its engineers were investigating a "potential network issue" in the region. News outlets picked up on the developing story and #VerizonOutage began trending.
Two hours after the problems began, Verizon announced that service was starting to restore. The company explained that a cut to multiple fiber lines caused the outage. Repair crews had been dispatched to patch the lines.
By the next morning, Verizon said the fiber had been fixed and service restored for nearly all impacted customers. The company apologized for the disruption and said it would be contacting customers to provide billing credits for the downtime.
This incident showcased Verizon‘s typical outage response playbook: quickly acknowledge the issue, investigate the root cause, deploy emergency repairs, update customers as service restores, and make good with refunds or credits.
While that‘s all well and good, many customers complain that Verizon often downplays the extent of problems and fails to provide clear and timely updates. During outages, getting clear answers from Verizon support or pinpointing outage locations can be frustrating. The company could stand to be more transparent.
Steps Verizon is Taking to Boost Network Resiliency
To its credit, Verizon is investing heavily to harden its network against outages. Since 2015, the company has spent over $126 billion on network infrastructure and improvements. Verizon is densifying its network with more redundant fiber links and small cells to mitigate outages. Battery backups are being added to more cell sites and the company has a fleet of mobile generators to restore power after storms.
Verizon has also been working with power companies to make cell sites a top priority for power restoration after disasters. Getting power back online quickly is key to minimizing outages. The company has been upgrading its network monitoring and management tools to detect and resolve outages faster.
Nevertheless, Verizon admits that outages can never be eliminated entirely. As climate change fuels more severe weather events, the challenge of outage prevention grows. Without burying critical infrastructure, risks remain. And as with any large-scale human-operated system, mistakes and bugs happen. Striving for improved reliability is an ongoing process.
What You Can Do When Verizon Goes Down
Knowing why Verizon has outages is little consolation when you‘re left without service. Luckily, there are some things you can try to get back online or stay connected during a Verizon outage:
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Check for outage reports – Downdetector, social media, and local news outlets can reveal if there‘s a widespread Verizon outage in your area. Knowing it‘s not just you can save troubleshooting headaches.
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Try a backup connection – During Verizon outages, you may be able to get online by connecting to Wi-Fi at home, work, or public hotspots. Having a secondary mobile carrier can also help. Consider getting a cheap backup plan or pay-as-you-go SIM card on another network.
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Use built-in alternatives – Modern smartphones can still communicate without a cell network. Apple‘s iPhones have iMessage and FaceTime which work over Wi-Fi. Other messaging apps like Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, and Skype can be helpful when cell service is down.
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Go old school – Cell outages are a good reminder to have a landline phone or non-electric equipment at home for emergencies. Simple things like a battery-powered radio can be important information lifelines when networks fail.
How Does Verizon‘s Reliability Compare?
For all its outage issues, Verizon still has a strong claim to being the most reliable major mobile carrier in the US. Multiple third-party network tests and metrics give Verizon a slight edge over rivals AT&T and T-Mobile for network availability, speed, and consistency.
Verizon touts a 99.97% network reliability rate, though that leaves quite a bit of downtime when applied to millions of customers. Outages remain too common across all the major carriers. AT&T and T-Mobile actually tend to have moderately more outage reports than Verizon.
Still, there‘s not a huge difference in practical reliability between networks in most of the country these days. Verizon‘s reputation advantage is starting to erode as competitors improve their networks. Continued network investments will be needed for Verizon to keep its lead.
The Bottom Line on Verizon Outages
Fundamentally, Verizon outages stem from the staggering complexity of running a national-scale mobile network. No amount of investment can completely eliminate the risk of outages given the sheer multitude of things that can go wrong.
Weather, equipment failures, human errors, and random accidents will always cause some degree of outages. In an increasingly wireless world, we will likely have to live with occasional loss of cell service. Verizon and other carriers must focus on minimizing the frequency and severity of outages.
At least for now, Verizon still offers a high level of reliability for a network of its size and scale. But outages seem to be gradually getting worse across the industry as networks grow more complex. As 5G continues its rollout, don‘t be surprised if major outages actually become more common.
The key is for Verizon to get better at anticipating, mitigating, responding to, and communicating about outages. Improving network monitoring, power backups, redundant infrastructure, and disaster response capabilities will be crucial. Customers also have a right to demand clearer and more transparent outage information and restitution.
Ultimately, 100% uptime will never be possible for any mobile network. A more realistic goal is striving to make outages as rare and brief as possible. With climate change and cybersecurity threats on the rise, Verizon will have its work cut out for it. One thing‘s for sure – outages will keep happening and "Verizon is down" will remain a dreaded phrase for the foreseeable future.
