India, Jan. 15 -- 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.

"Today, we let many of our customers down and for that, we are truly sorry," Verizon wrote in updates shared on social media. A spokesperson later added that the company would give those impacted a $20 account credit through Verizon's app, which on average "covers multiple days of service," and directly contact its business customers with compensation.

While several social media users and commentators speculated whether the Verizon outage...