Verizon Communications Inc. (VZ) announced it will provide a $20 account credit to customers impacted by a major network outage on Wednesday, which the company attributed to a software issue.

In a statement released Thursday morning, the company stated, "Yesterday, our service did not meet the standard of excellence our customers expect and we demand of ourselves." The $20 credit is intended to cover "several days of service fees" for affected users.

According to data from the network monitoring platform Downdetector, user reports of service issues began accumulating around midday in the New York area, peaking roughly an hour later with approximately 177,339 complaints. Cities with the highest number of complaints included New York, Houston, Atlanta, Dallas, and Miami.

The platform also indicated that the number of network issues reported by users of AT&T Inc. (T) and T-Mobile US (TMUS) was significantly lower. A common industry spillover effect exists—when a major carrier experiences an outage, calls to users on that network may also fail to connect.

The Federal Communications Commission posted on social media platform X that it was aware of the outage and closely monitoring the situation. Additionally, FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez stated she was "closely following reports" and would request that the Commission's Consumer and Public Safety Bureau "investigate the cause of the service disruption."

In August of last year, Verizon experienced another significant network outage that affected thousands of customers nationwide, causing several hours of service disruption. At that time, the company also identified a software issue as the root cause.

David Witkowski, a senior member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, noted that such service disruptions are often caused by external factors rather than issues with the carrier itself. The IEEE is responsible for developing global technical standards.

In an emailed statement, he suggested that a cyberattack could be one external factor causing an outage, but failures could also originate with third-party vendors who "provide outsourced compute resources." Other external factors include "some software updates and patches that work in test systems but fail when deployed due to unforeseen incompatibilities with older hardware."

Verizon stated on Wednesday that there was no indication the network outage was related to a cyberattack.

Verizon appointed a new Chief Executive Officer last year, hiring former PayPal Holdings Inc. executive Dan Schulman to lead the company, with the aim of reversing a trend of subscriber losses over consecutive quarters. Shortly after Schulman's appointment, Verizon implemented aggressive cost-cutting measures, including laying off approximately 13,000 employees.

In early trading on Thursday, Verizon's stock fell 1.3% on the New York Stock Exchange.