Submitted 3 days ago by mesamunefire@piefed.social to technology@lemmy.world
https://www.techradar.com/news/live/verizon-outage-january-2026
Verizon is down, with many users seeing 'SOS' – here's everything we know about this outage
Seemingly ‘SOS’ is replacing network bars
SOS is what a phone displays when it can reach a cell tower, but cant find an valid account associated with its SIM card. Its so you can make emergency calls to things like 911 from any phone, regardless of whether you’ve paid a carrier for service or had your service cut off.
not always, when I’m out in the middle of nowhere, I also see sos
By out in the middle of nowhere, you would have to not be able to connect to any carrier network at all. If you are a Verizon customer and can’t get Verizon signal, but you can see an AT&T tower, you will connect to it to make 911 calls, or a T-Mobile tower, if that’s the one you can see. It doesn’t matter. Every carrier has to carry 911 calls for every other carrier.
So the glitch is in auth/access/accounting, like the intern just pushed to prod.
Copilot told him: “you are absolutely right!”
I thought this wasn’t a legal requirement of US carriers, sharing their towers for emergencies. Maybe it’s a state thing.
Google AI search says it’s a federal mandate in the US. I couldn’t find the related legislation though.
Fuck Verizon fuck I.C.E.
Verizon tried to charge me a dollar for an emailed version of some instructions their CSR was flubbing on the phone.
Glad to see that they seemed to have found their dollar somewhere else.
Glad that they mention, albeit a ways in, that reports of other carriers being down are because people try to call Verizon-serviced phones and freak out on Downdetector when it doesn’t go through.
Downdetector has never been a reliable indicator of anything except people freaking out.
People, switch to USMOBILE www.usmobile.com
It’s also a way to track you without you being able to communicate.
thanks, ChatGPT
shortwavesurfer@lemmy.zip 3 days ago
Happy to report that meshtastic is still functioning, despite not being charged a monthly service fee.
rockyracoon@lemmy.world 3 days ago
What ways do you use meshtastic? Did you setup any friends or family with terminals? It’s kinda just like a group text right?
I’ve been thinking about setting one up myself but I’m not sure what I’d do with it. Im not sure I could convince anyone to use it even if I gifted them a radio. And I get enough of hams just chatting about their gear on HF…
shortwavesurfer@lemmy.zip 3 days ago
I have not done so yet, but I’m going to set up a few of my family members with nodes, but I’m going to get them one of those helltec mesh pocket nodes since it’s also a phone backup battery. That way they’ll be likely to actually carry it with them.