Verizon says that it has resolved issues with Fios, its fiber-optic network, that affected many locations in the Northeastern US on Tuesday.
“Yesterday there was a broad internet issue that caused a temporary degradation of service to customers in the Northeast for just under an hour,” a Verizon spokesperson said in a statement to The Verge. “There was an unrelated fiber cut that impacted a very small number of customers in Brooklyn, NY. The cause of the cut was a tree falling on the cable and service has been restored.”
Users began reporting problems with Verizon on Downdetector shortly after 11AM ET, and the volume of reports peaked at more than 22,000 on Tuesday. Hotspots for problems on Downdetector’s outage map for Verizon included Boston, New York City, Washington, DC, and more. A few Verge staffers experienced outages as well.
“An internet issue impacting the quality of our Fios service throughout the Northeast has been resolved,” Verizon said via its support account on Twitter to many users on the platform Tuesday afternoon. “Network performance and service levels are returning to normal.”
Good afternoon and happy new year Darren, Thanks so much for reaching out to us. An internet issue impacting the quality of our Fios service throughout the Northeast has been resolved. Network performance and service levels are returning to normal. Please DM us if not back. ^RME
— Verizon Support (@VerizonSupport) January 26, 2021
The Verizon Support Twitter account reported the fiber cut in Brooklyn at 11:52AM ET on Tuesday, and as of 4:04PM ET the same day, the company said the cut was still affecting customers in the area.
People also reported issues with Google, Zoom, Gmail, and more on Downdetector, but the reports appear to have come from the same places that were experiencing problems with Fios. Google and Zoom’s status pages aren’t showing any outages, so it’s possible problems with those services in the Northeastern US were tied to the Fios outage.
Acting Federal Communications Commission (FCC) chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said on Tuesday that the FCC’s Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau is looking into the situation.
We have seen reports of internet-related outages on the East Coast, making it difficult for people to work remotely and go to school online. The @FCC Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau is working to get to the bottom of what is going on.
— Jessica Rosenworcel (@JRosenworcel) January 26, 2021
Update January 27th, 11:39AM ET: Added statement from Verizon the outage and fiber cut in Brooklyn have been fixed.
