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Verizon is Down: iPhones Show 'SOS' Mode Due to Network Outage [Resolved]

subjonas said:
You might be right about Verizon sucking and T-Mobile being best in Portland. I was there recently and there were a couple large very populated areas where I got zero reception on Verizon and couldn't so much as send an iMessage. Everyone around me had T-Mobile and had no issues. Very anecdotal, but supports your claim.

But the weird thing is I've gone there a lot over the years to the very same areas, and the last time was the first time I remember having any issues at all.
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I've had all three carriers over the years between my personal phone and my work phone, and switched around a few times. Verizon's "golden age" was the early years of LTE, they struck gold with a ginormous chuck of 700mhz band and were able to put it what felt like everywhere, and made it so you could get signal in parking garages and indoors where the other two couldn't dream of, even if they had less towers in the area like in Portland.

Fast forward, and 5G changed everything. Their solid LTE network got everyone to switch over, but Verizons 5G network is seriously lacking compared to T-mobiles, and really shows especially in areas of congestion or where they don't have many towers. They put too many eggs in the mm-wave basket, and shot themselves in the foot. T-Mobile focused on mid-band from the jump, and that pulled them way ahead, similar to Verizon's strategy during the LTE days. AT&T has been somewhere in the middle the entire time, both with LTE and 5G. But as Verizon transitions more of their old CDMA spectrum to 5G, they are loosing that edge, because T-Mobile really won the 5G game with all the spectrum they were able to get from Sprints failed wi-max network and smart focus on mid-band with a few years head start.
 
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My sister-in-law in South Carolina on USMobile Warp is affected by the Verizon outage. So some MVNOs are affected. But here in New Mexico, all is Ok on US Mobile Warp.
 
kalafalas said:
I've had all three carriers over the years between my personal phone and my work phone, and switched around a few times. Verizon's "golden age" was the early years of LTE, they struck gold with a ginormous chuck of 700mhz band and were able to put it what felt like everywhere, and made it so you could get signal in parking garages and indoors where the other two couldn't dream of, even if they had less towers in the area like in Portland.

Fast forward, and 5G changed everything. Their solid LTE network got everyone to switch over, but Verizons 5G network is seriously lacking compared to T-mobiles, and really shows especially in areas of congestion or where they don't have many towers. They put too many eggs in the mm-wave basket, and shot themselves in the foot. T-Mobile focused on mid-band from the jump, and that pulled them way ahead, similar to Verizon's strategy during the LTE days. AT&T has been somewhere in the middle the entire time, both with LTE and 5G. But as Verizon transitions more of their old CDMA spectrum to 5G, they are loosing that edge, because T-Mobile really won the 5G game with all the spectrum they were able to get from Sprints failed wi-max network and smart focus on mid-band with a few years head start.
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This is about the best cell carrier battle summary I’ve ever seen. All stated without bias and all absolutely correct. Very nicely stated.
 
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Verizon will:
1. In February, offer a $5 rebate to their customers, if you prove you were affected.
2. In March, raise everyone’s monthly fees by $10 per month.

Never miss an opportunity to make money from a crisis, including one you are responsible for creating.

Gotta love extractive capitalism.
 
SkippyThorson said:
This is about the best cell carrier battle summary I’ve ever seen. All stated without bias and all absolutely correct. Very nicely stated.
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I'm not sure it's "without bias."

Since I travel for work (~120 days a year) across North America and Europe (less relevant, but I'll explain in a minute), everything absolutely varies.

As an AT&T customer for 21 years, the big loser in 5G coverage, even with their scam "Turbo" add-on, is them. Raw coverage is okay, but speed has been consistently lower than LTE. That is - with AT&T, on my iPhone 11 Pro Max, I regularly got 100-120mbps.

With "5G+", on iPhone 15 Pro, 16, 16 Plus, and now 17 Pro Max, with and without Turbo (which is really just a notch higher on PRI), I get 60-80mbps.
There are rare occasions I get 250-400mbps; for a while I did in my backyard and various areas of the USA (Dallas, Chicago, Denver); but it's back to terrible (late 2023-2026). And AT&T "put its eggs in the mmWave basket," too - see: Atlanta (3.2gbps) and Orlando (1.4gbps early on) in one spot, then zero coverage five feet away.

T-Mobile speeds have been fantastic - we have it for my kids, as both T-Mobile and Google Fi. Global roaming is great (again, more later). But they're a scummy company to work with. 600Mhz, 700Mhz, etc. - merging Sprint+T-Mob - was brilliant (as reflected in their stock price). Getting more bandwidth from Dish/Ecostar (AT&T too) will only make it better. But coverage in many areas that do not have legacy towers, and cannot install new ones, is a problem for them. Low frequency can penetrate buildings, but I haven't seen any improved distance if you're between tower geos, as I am at home.

Finally, Verizon. Yeah, yesterday was a debacle. Yeah, expensive. But for reliable data, they have been by far the best. Voice is also many, many times better than AT&T, period. Not sure if 5G Standalone and voice over 5G really works, but don't care. It's still the best for me. I had it when I was a kid, now overlap with AT&T (dual SIM) for the past five years.

So I regularly "taste test" two or three carriers, at once. It's not hyperbole.

For global roaming - something broke that I cannot select carriers any more - I found in 2025 that AT&T's default roaming agreements are far better than Verizon. However, I get one free day a month paid service, so I don't pay for it myself; only my wife/kids do when we travel abroad. So I give AT&T a plus here. T-Mob and Google Fi are "free/included", but the service is absolute trash 3G.

(AT&T built-in hotspot in wife car maxes out at 15mbps; Verizon somehow just jumped to 80-100mbps in the past few months - and car hotspot is more reliable/stable than phones, since it routes the antenna through the shark tail or windows, can't recall)
 
lindros2 said:
I'm not sure it's "without bias."

Since I travel for work (~120 days a year) across North America and Europe (less relevant, but I'll explain in a minute), everything absolutely varies.

As an AT&T customer for 21 years, the big loser in 5G coverage, even with their scam "Turbo" add-on, is them. Raw coverage is okay, but speed has been consistently lower than LTE. That is - with AT&T, on my iPhone 11 Pro Max, I regularly got 100-120mbps.

With "5G+", on iPhone 15 Pro, 16, 16 Plus, and now 17 Pro Max, with and without Turbo (which is really just a notch higher on PRI), I get 60-80mbps.
There are rare occasions I get 250-400mbps; for a while I did in my backyard and various areas of the USA (Dallas, Chicago, Denver); but it's back to terrible (late 2023-2026). And AT&T "put its eggs in the mmWave basket," too - see: Atlanta (3.2gbps) and Orlando (1.4gbps early on) in one spot, then zero coverage five feet away.

T-Mobile speeds have been fantastic - we have it for my kids, as both T-Mobile and Google Fi. Global roaming is great (again, more later). But they're a scummy company to work with. 600Mhz, 700Mhz, etc. - merging Sprint+T-Mob - was brilliant (as reflected in their stock price). Getting more bandwidth from Dish/Ecostar (AT&T too) will only make it better. But coverage in many areas that do not have legacy towers, and cannot install new ones, is a problem for them. Low frequency can penetrate buildings, but I haven't seen any improved distance if you're between tower geos, as I am at home.

Finally, Verizon. Yeah, yesterday was a debacle. Yeah, expensive. But for reliable data, they have been by far the best. Voice is also many, many times better than AT&T, period. Not sure if 5G Standalone and voice over 5G really works, but don't care. It's still the best for me. I had it when I was a kid, now overlap with AT&T (dual SIM) for the past five years.

So I regularly "taste test" two or three carriers, at once. It's not hyperbole.

For global roaming - something broke that I cannot select carriers any more - I found in 2025 that AT&T's default roaming agreements are far better than Verizon. However, I get one free day a month paid service, so I don't pay for it myself; only my wife/kids do when we travel abroad. So I give AT&T a plus here. T-Mob and Google Fi are "free/included", but the service is absolute trash 3G.

(AT&T built-in hotspot in wife car maxes out at 15mbps; Verizon somehow just jumped to 80-100mbps in the past few months - and car hotspot is more reliable/stable than phones, since it routes the antenna through the shark tail or windows, can't recall)
Click to expand...
I do agree that Verizon’s voice services are best in class, and to this day it’s due to that ginormous 700mhz chunk of LTE. But personally I use maybe 10 minutes a month, so my focus is on data. My experience with AT&T is the smallest of the three, so hearing your experience is helpful and enlightening! I didn’t realize their 5G coverage is so bad, sounds like even worse than Verizon’s. I figure they seemed to have gotten a similar amount of C band as Verizon did, but also rolled it out later so I guess that makes sense. I personally was so annoyed at the “5Ge” lie I hesitated to ever go back. My current setup is Visible as my main sim, and Tello as my backup. My last work phone was Verizon. My last work phone before that was AT&T. I can’t speak much for global roaming. I rarely travel overseas.
 
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kalafalas said:
I do agree that Verizon’s voice services are best in class, and to this day it’s due to that ginormous 700mhz chunk of LTE. But personally I use maybe 10 minutes a month, so my focus is on data. My experience with AT&T is the smallest of the three, so hearing your experience is helpful and enlightening! I didn’t realize their 5G coverage is so bad, sounds like even worse than Verizon’s. I figure they seemed to have gotten a similar amount of C band as Verizon did, but also rolled it out later so I guess that makes sense. I personally was so annoyed at the “5Ge” lie I hesitated to ever go back. My current setup is Visible as my main sim, and Tello as my backup. My last work phone was Verizon. My last work phone before that was AT&T. I can’t speak much for global roaming. I rarely travel overseas.
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Right now it's a (thankfully) race to the bottom for cost.

If you can download the apps and install eSIM (ha ha root cause of outage...) to test them, do it.

See which ones are best in your area, and if you can, use an MVNO (Visible, Cricket, Metro, whatever) which are far cheaper.

For certain reasons, I cannot - I have to use the main carriers and get ra-ed through the hole.

p.s. please for goodness sake save up and buy your phone. What we saw on Wednesday is that having a contract - sorry, "installment plan with up to $1100" is an absolute travesty. People couldn't bounce to SIM2 because their devices were node-locked. I can, I have - I have four SIM on my phone (two active at a time).
 
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