Verizon to issue $20 credits to customers impacted by outage

Verizon on Thursday said that it would begin issuing $20 credits to the accounts of customers impacted by Wednesday’s nearly day-long cellular service problems.

The outage, which brought voice and data services to a halt for many customers of the country’s largest wireless network, lasted from about 12 p.m. ET until well after 10 p.m. ET.

“Yesterday, we did not meet the standard of excellence you expect and that we expect of ourselves,” Verizon said in a statement posted to social media site X.

“To help provide some relief, we are giving you a $20 account credit that can be easily redeemed by logging into the myVerizon app to accept,” the company said.

Verizon said if customers were still experiencing problems with their cellular devices, “please restart your device.” The provider said rebooting would be the “fastest way to reconnect your phone to the network” and resolve any lingering connection problems.

“This credit isn’t meant to make up for what happened,” Verizon said. “No credit really can. But it’s a way of acknowledging your time and showing that this matters to us.”

On Wednesday night, Republican New York State Assembly member Anil Beephan, Jr. asked the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission to investigate what happened.

Beephan said the outage “had a significant and unacceptable impact on public safety, including disruptions to reliable access to emergency communications and critical response systems.”

“More broadly, the continued instability of a major wireless carrier raises concerns about the resiliency and reliability of our greater communications infrastructure,” the lawmaker added.

Verizon did not respond to questions from NBC News about what specifically caused the outage.

The FCC said on Wednesday that it was “aware” of the Verizon outage and was monitoring the situation. The FCC did not respond to emailed questions about whether an investigation had been opened.

FCC commissioner Anna Gomez added in a separate statement that she would be “asking our Consumer/Public Safety Bureaus to keep a close eye on this situation and investigate the source of this service disruption.”