Verizon (NYSE: VZ) suffered a two-and-a-half-hour network outage in major markets across Florida Tuesday night.
First Coast News was among the first to report the outage, which affected users in Miami, Orlando, Jacksonville, Tampa, St. Petersburg and other cities. Citing the outage-tracking site Down Detector, the outlet said thousands of users couldn't make voice calls while others reported no data service.
PhoneArena.com reported that the outage at times affected some users in a specific location while leaving others in the same location unaffected. "The Verizon technical support crew that we spoke with were basically dumbfounded by this activity," PhoneArena said.
The nation's largest carrier confirmed the outage in a statement to First Coast News.
"Verizon Wireless experienced an interruption in voice service for some customers throughout Florida today," the carrier conceded. "The outage lasted approximately 2.5 hours. Engineers were able to identify and resolve the issue promptly and service was restored by 7:40 p.m. EST."
Verizon spokesman Chuck Hamby also confirmed via Twitter that service had been restored.
Of course, occasional network failures are nothing new for mobile network operators: AT&T's (NYSE: T) prepaid brand Cricket Wireless last week offered $5 in credit to some users who suffered through a recent outage. Sprint (NYSE: S) experienced "a major network outage" in the Northeast U.S. in March that affected 3G and 4G voice and data services in markets including Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania. And T-Mobile US confirmed that it suffered a network outage earlier this year that appeared to affect customers' ability across the country to make voice calls over Wi-Fi and LTE.
Disruptions and service glitches can occur due to a wide range of factors including weather conditions and interference problems.
For more:
- see this First Coast News report
- read this PhoneArena.com article
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