Verizon's 3G Network Goes Down Nationwide [Update: It's Up Again]

Mobile phone carrier Verizon Wireless' 3G network was hit today by a major outage, and is currently down all around the United States, various reports around the web suggest.

Update: The issue has been resolved. Jump to the bottom of the article for specific info.

In case there are users who are trying to connect to the carrier's 3G airwaves and do not manage to do so, they should know that it's all due to this issue with the network, and that it has nothing to do with their mobile phones.

Various reports from users show that the network is down in about any corner of the country, a recent article on Engadget reports. Angry customers are already expressing their rage via forum posts or tweets.

While nothing was announced officially on the matter, we are pretty sure that Verizon's engineers are currently trying to sort things out, and that the problem would be fixed in the very near future.

For what it's worth, we haven't heard of a data outage at Verizon since over half a year ago.

One similar situation was reported in early March, when parts of the wireless carrier's network were affected by this problem, though the wireless carrier managed to solve the issue quite fast at the time.

Unlike that issue, today's problem reportedly affects most of the carrier's users, but there's no telling on whether the entire network is down or not.

Some of the areas that seem to have been affected include San Francisco, Washington DC, New Jersey, South Carolina, Florida, and in other areas as well.

Since the problem affects almost the entire Verizon 3G network, the wireless carrier would certainly hurry up and put things back in order in the shortest time possible.

However, the carrier did not announce something officially on this for the time being. Hopefully, it won't be too long before it makes a formal announcement, so that users would know how long it would take before the issue is solved.

Update 1: The network is now live in some areas, but there is no info on whether it was restored all around the country.

Update 2: Things returned to normal in all areas. In a statement, Verizon said that the issue affected only the Internet browsing on its 3G network, and not the entire service.

According to BGR, the company stated the following:

Last night, during routine maintenance of our 3G network, a technical glitch hampered the ability of customers to reach the Internet through web browsers on their phones.

This technical glitch lasted from approximately 1:40 am – 5 am ET, and covered a large proportion of our regular network. 3G network coverage was never out, just this one particular service. Full capabilities were fully restored at approximately 5 am ET. We apologize to any and all affected customers.