Following Verizon’s disruptive and widespread service outage in January, the Federal Communications Commission is asking for affected customers to report on what they experienced by March 16.
The FCC investigation, which kicked off Jan. 28, “invites interested parties to provide all relevant information concerning the effects of the outage, particularly on 911 calling and public safety.” As ‘s sibling site Mashable reported (and is cited in the FCC’s notice), the outage seems to have prevented emergency calls from connecting.
While Verizon’s service was down on Jan. 14, the House Energy and Commerce Committee heard testimony on oversight of the FCC from chair Brendan Carr (left) and commissioners, Anna Gomez (middle) and Olivia Trusty (right).
On Jan. 14, Verizon’s cellular and broadband networks went offline for at least 10 hours and impacted roughly 2 million customers. For many, their phones showed only “SOS” instead of the regular cellular connection bars, even after the network came back online. To date the company has not released a cause other than a “software issue,” though some telecommunications experts believe it was a a bad update that affected Verizon’s 5G SA (Standalone) core, based on the characteristics of the outage.
Customers can describe their experiences by email to [email protected] or use the FCC’s official electronic comment system. The PDF of the public notice also includes instructions for filing by paper via US Postal Service mail or hand delivery.
Credits offered, but are they enough?
As recompense, Verizon is offering a $20 credit to people who were affected, via text messages and notifications in the My Verizon app. Credits of $5 are also being offered to customers of Visible, a Verizon-owned virtual operator.
At the time, the company said in a statement, “This credit isn’t meant to make up for what happened. No credit really can. But it’s a way of acknowledging our customers’ time and showing that this matters to us.” Based on angry reports I’ve seen on Reddit, that token amount doesn’t go far enough for some people. PCMag reported that some people have been able to negotiate credits up to $200, but that requires contacting customer service directly and justifying a legitimate reason for increasing the amount.
Although the FCC investigation appears to be most interested in the emergency-services impacts of the outage, it’s also asking for comments on how Verizon communicated and reacted. Some of the queries in the public notice include, “Was Verizon’s public communication about the outage appropriate, timely, and effective? What effect did the outage have on businesses and providers of critical services, such as hospitals? What effect did the outage have on consumers’ ability to contact emergency services, ability to contact family members, and personal activities?”
Unsurprisingly, scammers are running credit phishing scams by sending texts that look legitimate but contain phishing links, according to reporting at LifeHacker. As always, we encourage you to be vigilant and learn how to tell if links are actually spam.
