Verizon customers traveling outside the US started losing cell service early Wednesday, with phones dropping into SOS or satellite-only mode instead of connecting to a local network. The outage is limited to international roaming so far — Verizon says domestic service in the US is unaffected, though some US-based customers may notice delayed connections or extra buffering as a side effect.
Reports began surfacing on Reddit, X, and Facebook early Wednesday morning, with affected users describing being unable to make calls, send texts, or use mobile data while abroad. Android Authority reports that Verizon confirmed the problem in a statement shared directly with the outlet:
“We are aware of issues with several third-party vendors that are impacting roaming services for some customers traveling internationally. Additionally, US-based Verizon customers may also experience delayed connections or increased buffering. Our engineers are engaged and working quickly with our vendors to resolve these issues. We know how much people rely on Verizon and apologize for any inconvenience.” — Verizon spokesperson
Verizon, like every other major US carrier, doesn’t operate its own network overseas — when you travel internationally, your phone connects through partner networks and roaming-connectivity vendors in whichever country you’re in. That handoff is exactly where today’s problem sits: Verizon is blaming “several third-party vendors,” not its own network, and international roaming outages caused by shared backend providers have hit multiple US carriers at once before. It’s not yet clear whether AT&T or T-Mobile customers are seeing the same issue today; as of publication, only Verizon has confirmed a problem.
As of Verizon’s most recent statement, there’s no timeline for a fix. If you’re traveling and lose service unexpectedly, look for a manual network selection option in your phone’s settings, or try toggling airplane mode on and off to force a fresh connection attempt — that won’t fix a backend outage, but it’s worth trying in case your phone is just stuck on a bad connection. This kind of shared-vendor roaming outage has historically cleared up within hours rather than days, so there’s a reasonable chance service is already back to normal for some users by the time you’re reading this — check Verizon’s support channels for the latest status before assuming you’re still affected.
Source: Android Authority
