Verizon Wireless service was restored to Ocean County after being out for about 12 hours starting on Thursday afternoon.

Verizon Wireless iPhone showing service restored on Friday morning
Verizon Wireless iPhone showing service restored on Friday morning (Jason Allentoff, Townsquare Media NJ)
loading...

The Ocean County Signal posted on their Facebook page that service was restored around 3:45 a.m. Friday morning as in-boxes filled with missed messages and texts.

Townsquare Media's Jason Allentoff and several users on Facebook noted they only had 3 bars early on Friday morning when service returned but their phone is working.

Sheldon Jones, Verizon Wireless’ public relations manager for Verizon Wireless' Philadelphia Tri-State Region, tells Townsquare Media the problem was caused by a cut network fiber optic cable in Little Egg Harbor and apologizes for the inconvenience to customers. He could not specify the location of the cut cable but said it was likely above the ground and not at street level.

Jones said that customers who did not get messages sent during the outage should visit an authorized retailer or contact customer service on the company's website at VerizonWireless.com.

He did not know if Verizon Wireless would offer refunds or adjustments to bills to account for the outage, which began after 2 p.m. on Thursday afternoon. He said it would considered on a "case-by-case" basis and again suggested contacting customer service.

When asked about the concerns of about users not having service for medical and emergency purposes he said that Verizion Wireless is the "most reliable service out there" with a track record of working "98 or 99 per cent of the time."

During the outage a Verizon Wireless store employee told the Patch of Toms River that there were 38 towers affecting Ocean County were out. Several users said that once they traveled away from Ocean County their phones came back to life. Exit 90 in Brick heading northbound on the Garden State Parkway seemed to be the dividing line for service.

Wired vs. Wireless

The outage came on the same day that Shore legislators Sen. Jim Holzapfel and Assemblymen Dave Wolfe and Greg McGuckin issued a statement asking the state Department of Public Utilities to require Verizon to replace copper wiring in Brick and Mantoloking destroyed by Superstorm Sandy with fiber optics instead of relying on wireles service.

"There are concerns that the Voice Link system is incompatible with fax machines, security monitoring systems and medical diagnostic devices," wrote the legislators.

Verizon has said it is too expensive to replace the copper wiring. However, the utility backed off a similar stand with residents of Fire Island, New York and agreed to install fiber optics according to legislators.

 

More From 92.7 WOBM