Lessons Learned from Verizon's Outage
The Verizon outage on January 14, 2026, is a textbook case of how a single software issue in core infrastructure can cascade into a nationwide failure. Verizon has said the disruption was caused by a software problem rather than a cyberattack, and it knocked out Voice, Text, and Data for roughly 10 hours across much of the United States. Analysts have pointed to software-based core networks, configuration issues, and a likely feature update failure as contributing factors.
First, a lesson for businesses is that software changes to critical systems are inherently high-risk. Treat them like surgery, not routine maintenance. That means strict change management: Peer-Reviewed Change Tickets, Automated Test Suites, Pre-Production Environments that mirror production, and Staged Rollouts using canary or blue-green deployments. A new feature or configuration should hit a small subset of users or a non-critical region first, with clear metrics to decide whether to continue or roll back.
Second, design your network so any single software fault can be contained. The outage shows what happens when core control-plane logic becomes a single point of failure. Segment environments (regions, sites, business units) so a bad update can be isolated. Build "active-active" or "active-standby" redundancy for key components with independent failover paths, and keep a “known good” software image that can be quickly restored.
Third, invest in Deep Observability and External Monitoring. During the Verizon incident, user-facing tools like Downdetector made the scale obvious very quickly. Your own environment should combine Internal Telemetry (logs, traces, health checks) with Synthetic Tests that continuously place calls, open VPNs, and transact across critical apps from multiple locations. Alerts should trigger not just on device CPU or link status, but on real user outcomes: Call Completion Rates, Error Rates, and Latency.
Fourth, assume humans under pressure will make mistakes. Run regular “game days” and simulations where you practice rolling back bad configs, failing over to backup links, and invoking incident playbooks. This builds muscle memory before you’re in the spotlight.
Fifth, remember that Software-Defined Networks are powerful but fragile if unmanaged. As you adopt SD-WAN, Virtual Firewalls, and Cloud-Based Voice, pair them with Disciplined Governance, Rigorous Testing, and Architectural Reviews. You may not stop every bug—but you can keep one bad update from taking your entire company offline.
Contact the team at GCG to ensure your company is prepared to properly address any failures within your network today!
Portions of this blog sourced from the following: Reuters, Wired, 5Gstore.com