Verizon outages reported across U.S.

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Scope and Symptoms of the Outage

  • Reports from both East and West coasts; some cities heavily affected while others on the same carrier were fine.
  • Many users saw “SOS only,” some had data but no LTE/5G indicator, some had normal service the whole time.
  • Postpaid Verizon-branded accounts and core network functions were reported as most impacted; several MVNOs on Verizon (e.g., US Mobile, Visible) appeared largely unaffected.
  • Some users’ 5G home/Fios connections worked while their mobile lines were down.

Is It a Cyberattack?

  • Some speculate state-level cyberattack or even intentional government disruption, citing past examples like BART disabling cell service and Estonia’s attacks.
  • Others argue large telco outages are almost always self‑inflicted: bad config updates, routing/BGP issues, DNS problems, expired certificates, or fiber cuts.
  • Commenters note that a true coordinated attack would likely hit multiple providers at similar scale; DownDetector shows Verizon reports ~100x higher than AT&T/T‑Mobile, suggesting those spikes are mostly people unable to call Verizon numbers.
  • One view: cyberattacks are overused as a scapegoat by companies avoiding blame for incompetence; if attackers had deep access, covert use is more valuable than a loud outage.

DownDetector, Maps, and Other Services

  • Initial DownDetector home view made it look like “everyone is down”; users point out the Y‑axis normalization hides magnitude differences.
  • The Verizon outage map looks suspiciously like a population map, so its diagnostic value is questioned.
  • Some report concurrent issues with Comcast DNS and certain APIs (e.g., Grok 4.1), but any causal link is unclear.

Operational and Workforce Debates

  • Verizon reportedly laid off ~15% of staff, including network/IT/security roles; some see this as a likely contributor, others argue big tech and telcos are often overstaffed.
  • Long thread on how labor‑intensive nationwide carrier operations really are: physical plant work, legacy tech, MVNOs, retail stores, and outsourcing vs in‑house engineering.

Resilience, 2FA, and Alternatives

  • Many couldn’t receive SMS one‑time passwords from banks; some take this as another warning against SMS‑based 2FA (where alternatives exist).
  • Suggestions for outage‑resilient communication: mesh systems (Meshtastic, Meshcore), BLE apps (bitchat), LoRa pagers, though range, UX, and training nontechnical family members remain pain points.