Thousands report issues with Verizon services. Discover the details of the recent outage affecting mobile connections.

In New York, Assemblywoman Linda B. Rosenthal has already sponsored a bill that would require automatic outage-related refunds.

Telecom operator Verizon Communications' network was down for tens of thousands of users in the U.S. on Wednesday, according to outage tracking website Downdetector.com. Verizon said it was aware of the issue and that its engineers are working to identify and solve it.

In short, when you see SOS on your phone, it means you're not connected to a cellular network. "If you see SOS or 'SOS only' in the status bar, your device isn't connected to your cellular network, but you can still make emergency calls through other carrier networks," reads an Apple support page on the feature.

A Verizon outage on Wednesday affected over 170,000 users across the US, Downdetector data showed. In a statement, about 10 hours after phones started going into SOS mode, the company said that the issues were resolved. However, the carrier did not specify what caused the disruptions.

Is Verizon wireless network down today? Customers are reporting service outages via SOS mode on iPhone. What you need to know.

Verizon’s outage yesterday was bad, but it proved the company knows one thing: When things go wrong, humans want to speak to humans.