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Cell service outages hit NYC as officials investigate cause and assess potential effects
By
Giulia Heyward
Published Jan 14, 2026
Modified Jan 14, 2026
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By
Giulia Heyward
Published Jan 14, 2026
Modified Jan 14, 2026
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A nationwide Verizon outage left cellphone users, including more than 10,000 customers in New York City, without service on Wednesday.
The mass disruption began around noon and prompted an emergency alert from New York City’s Office of Emergency Management.
More than 155,000 outages were reported across the country in the last 24 hours, with an estimated 10,232 in New York City alone, according to the tracking site Downdetector.
City officials issued an alert early Wednesday afternoon, warning residents about the potential for service issues. While the city did not name Verizon directly, the agency acknowledged it was working with network providers and utility companies to determine the cause and assess any effects on essential services.
“We are also gathering information and updates from the affected network providers,” NYC Emergency Management said on social media. “The cause and scope of the outage are still being investigated. We will provide updates if the situation changes in a way that impacts the City of New York.”
Verizon has not said when service will be fully restored.
The company posted an initial statement on X, formerly Twitter, shortly after 1 p.m.
“We are aware of an issue impacting wireless voice and data services for some customers,” the company wrote. “Our engineers are engaged and are working to identify and solve the issue quickly. We understand how important reliable connectivity is and apologize for the inconvenience.”
About an hour later, the company shared another update, saying its engineering teams were “fully deployed” and continuing to address the service interruptions.
“Verizon engineering teams are continuing to address today's service interruptions," spokesperson Mariana Agathoklis Schlock said in a statement. "Our teams remain fully deployed and are focused on the issue. We understand the impact this has on your day and remain committed to resolving this as quickly as possible."
New Yorkers using other carriers also reported outages. About 275 T-Mobile users and 226 AT&T customers in the city reported problems on Wednesday, according to Downdetector. Both T-Mobile and AT&T said their networks were functioning normally, but noted that customers may have trouble reaching people using Verizon service.
Notify NYC, the city’s official emergency alert system, posted an advisory noting that the Verizon outage may affect some customers’ ability to call 911.
Officials urged residents to use a device from another carrier, a landline or to report emergencies in person at a police precinct or fire station. They also recommended using LinkNYC kiosks and encouraged residents to sign up for emergency alerts by texting NotifyNYC to 692-692.
“We are not seeing any major effects to essential services within the city,” said Christina Farrell, first deputy commissioner of New York City Emergency Management, in a video posted Wednesday afternoon. “But we understand that it could be affecting individual New Yorkers.”
In response to the outage, state Assemblymember Anil Beephan Jr. from Dutchess County sent a letter to the Federal Communications Commission urging an investigation into what he called “ongoing and repeated” Verizon service disruptions.
In the letter, Beephan said the outages have had “an unacceptable impact on public safety” and called for a federal review of Verizon’s network reliability, outage reporting practices and emergency communication standards.
The FCC did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Verizon, which has more than 146 million users nationwide, opened a new headquarters in Midtown last summer.
This is a developing story and may be updated.
Tagged
new york city
public safety
Giulia Heyward
Giulia Heyward is a breaking news reporter on the Day-Of desk. She previously worked at NPR, as a breaking news reporter, and the New York Times, as a reporting fellow on the national desk. Her work has also appeared in CNN, The Atlantic and Politico. Got a tip? Email [email protected] or more securely on signal at 917-715-1458.
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