Verizon outage impacts more than 1,700 in Chicago, thousands nationwide

Thousands of Verizon customers across the country, including in Chicago, reported service outages Saturday.

In a statement to the Sun-Times, Verizon said it was aware of the outages and was “working quickly to identify and solve the issue.”

“We are aware of a software issue impacting wireless service for some customers,” a spokesperson said. “We know how much people rely on Verizon and apologize for any inconvenience. We appreciate your patience.”

Nearly 24,000 Verizon customers across the country experienced outages about 2:30 p.m. Saturday as the outage peaked, according to the website Downdetector.com; that number had dropped to about 18,000 about an hour later. In Chicago, about 1,700 customers were affected at the outage’s peak.

Almost 60% of the outage reports were for mobile devices, with 40% of those reporting having no signal, according to the site.

Katherine Cruz, a communications manager for Verizon, said Saturday night that the company was beginning to see service restoration in the areas affected by the outage.

In an emailed statement, Cruz said engineers have been “working diligently on today’s service disruption” and are continuing efforts to ensure all remaining customers are fully restored as soon as possible.

“We appreciate your patience as we have worked through this issue,” Cruz added.