Verizon's Jan. 14, 2026, outage disrupted service for up to 180,000 users, with restoration underway by early afternoon.

According to Downdetector, up to 180,000 Verizon customers reported problems during a widespread outage that affected wireless voice and data services on January 14, 2026. On social media, the business expressed regret for the inconvenience and confirmed that its engineers were working to fix the issue. by 2:20 p.m. ET, the number of impacted users had decreased to roughly 76,000. According to Verizon, its teams are still fully deployed and working to restore service. Experts point out that switching to MVNOs—smaller carriers using major networks—can lower bills without sacrificing coverage, particularly for users on plans with excess data. The outage happened amid broader consumer discussions about mobile costs.