Why Thousands of New Yorkers are Having Cell Phone Trouble

Major Outages Throughout NYS

If you're a Verizon customer using an Apple cell phone in New York State on Monday, you may have been experiencing service issues.

According to sources, Verizon users across the country, but mainly in New York, are reporting network issues, and as of noon, over 100,00 incidents have been reported.

Apple and Verizon users nationwide reported service outages Monday morning after the network experienced “an issue,” a company spokesperson told The NY Post.

100K Incidents

Downdetector.com, a website that provides real-time updates on Internet and phone services, shows that about 100,000 incidents were reported from 9 a.m. to noon; the NY Post reports that the outages mainly affected users on the East Coast, including New York and the Midwest.

“We are aware of an issue impacting service for some customers,” a Verizon spokesperson told The Post in a statement. “Our engineers are engaged, and we are working quickly to identify and solve the issue.” NY Post

Some customers complained that their phones were going into "SOS" mode, which Apple says means they are not connected to a cellular network.

SOS Mode

SOS Mode is a feature that allows customers to make emergency calls when they are not connected to cellular service. It allows calls to a local emergency number and automatically turns off when cellular service is restored.

The only other option was for users to manually turn on their Wi-Fi calling, which allows for calls and text messages only when the phone is connected to a Wi-Fi network.

NBC News in New York received a Verizon statement saying, "We are aware of an issue impacting service for some customers. Our engineers are engaged, and we are working quickly to identify and solve the issue."