Verizon Wireless outage puts phones in SOS mode without cell service

Verizon Wireless experienced a significant U.S.-wide outage starting around 12 PM ET, leaving some customers in SOS-only mode and triggering messages that the "called party is temporarily unavailable." Verizon confirmed engineers are investigating and working to resolve the issue, while T-Mobile stated its network is operating normally though calls to Verizon users may fail due to Verizon’s outage. DownDetector and user reports indicate broad, intermittent impact across regions, and the situation remains developing.