this post was submitted on 14 Jan 2026
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127
Verizon is down, with many users seeing 'SOS' – here's everything we know about this outage (www.techradar.com)
submitted 1 week ago by mesamunefire@piefed.social to c/technology@lemmy.world
27 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Seemingly 'SOS' is replacing network bars

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[–] reddig33@lemmy.world 33 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (15 children)

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. Or the only cell tower you can reach has no connection to your carrier, but other carriers on that tower are available to make emergency calls.

[–] Uss_entrepeneur@piefed.social 7 points 1 week ago (1 children)

not always, when I’m out in the middle of nowhere, I also see sos

[–] shortwavesurfer@lemmy.zip 18 points 1 week ago (2 children)

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.

[–] ryannathans@aussie.zone 6 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Also iphones I think use satellite for SoS capability now if no cell

[–] village604@adultswim.fan 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I know my Pixel 9 can too.

[–] ryannathans@aussie.zone 1 points 1 week ago

Oh nice I have the 8, didn't know the 9 had satellite

[–] Uss_entrepeneur@piefed.social 3 points 1 week ago

good point, hadn’t thought of that

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