Comparing the outage experience of PSEG and Verizon Fios

We recently had a storm that took out both power and Verizon Fios.

The frustrating part was how well PSEG communicated and how disjointed Verizon was. The app and web did not sync, call centers had no idea what was happening, and the automated line test Verizon ran said there were no problems in the area.

Two outages. Two utilities. Two completely different experiences.

This is a perfect example of how user experience design directly affects trust during moments of stress.

The Outage Experience: PSEG vs Verizon

When infrastructure fails, the user experience becomes the product. People are anxious. They want answers quickly. They want clarity about what is happening and when it will be fixed. Utilities that communicate well reduce anxiety. Those that don’t create frustration.

The difference between PSEG and Verizon reveals how design decisions ripple through the entire customer experience.

PSEG: Clear Communication and Predictable Information

When the power went out, PSEG immediately made it easy to understand what was happening.

Their outage experience is built around a few simple principles.

1. Immediate Confirmation

Customers can quickly report outages through multiple channels:

• App
• Website
• Phone
• Text message

For example, PSEG allows customers to text “OUT” to report an outage and “STAT” to receive status updates, creating a fast, low-friction communication loop.

This matters more than most companies realize.

The moment users report an outage and receive confirmation, the system tells them:

“We know about the problem.”

That one signal reduces uncertainty dramatically.

2. Real Time Visibility

PSEG also provides an outage map with frequent updates, showing the number of affected customers and estimated restoration timelines.

The map is updated roughly every 15 minutes and provides restoration estimates and crew activity.

Even if power is still out, customers gain something critical.

Context.

They know whether:

• It is just their house
• Their block
• Their entire town

And they can see progress.

3. Proactive Notifications

Customers can subscribe to text, email, or phone alerts when outages occur and when restoration times change. This flips the interaction model. Instead of forcing customers to hunt for updates, the system pushes information to them.

That is good UX.

Verizon Fios: Fragmented and Uncertain

The Verizon experience during the same storm was the opposite. Instead of clarity, there was fragmentation. The biggest problems were not technical. They were experiential.

1. Systems That Do Not Agree

The website showed one status. The app showed another. The automated diagnostic tool said there was no outage in the area. When systems contradict each other, users immediately lose trust.

2. Support Without Context

Customer support agents had little visibility into the outage.

Call centers could not confirm whether a service disruption existed.

That created a strange loop.

Customers were asked to reboot routers, reset equipment, and run diagnostics even when the issue was clearly external.

In UX terms, this is a failure of shared system awareness.

Every customer touchpoint should pull from the same operational data.

3. Slow Communication During Outages

Verizon has experienced several major outages in recent years, including nationwide disruptions that affected hundreds of thousands of users and took hours to resolve.

During these events, communication updates have sometimes been delayed or limited, leaving customers unsure about the cause or expected restoration timeline.

For infrastructure services, silence is a design failure.

Why This UX Gap Exists

The difference between PSEG and Verizon comes down to system design.

Utilities like PSEG operate under strict regulatory expectations around outage communication and restoration transparency.

Their systems are designed to broadcast outage status clearly.

Telecommunications companies, however, often treat outages as technical incidents rather than communication events.

But from the user’s perspective, the technical problem is only half the issue.

The other half is information.

The UX Principles Verizon Could Borrow from PSEG

There are several design lessons here.

1. Single Source of Truth

All channels should display the same outage information:

• App
• Website
• Call center
• Automated diagnostics

When data conflicts, trust collapses.

2. Real Time Status Visibility

Telecom providers should offer live outage maps similar to power utilities.

Users should immediately see:

• Affected region
• Cause if known
• Estimated repair time

3. Proactive Notifications

Customers should not need to diagnose outages themselves.

If a network goes down in a region, affected users should automatically receive notifications.

4. Replace Diagnostics With Context

Running a line test that says “everything looks fine” during a regional outage is one of the worst possible experiences.

Instead, the system should say:

“We are aware of an outage affecting your area. Estimated repair time is 3 hours.”

• Clear.
• Honest.
• Actionable.

The Bigger Lesson

Infrastructure companies often think reliability is their product.

It is not.

The experience of failure is also the product.

Storms will always knock out power lines. Fiber lines will occasionally fail. Networks will go down. The companies that earn trust are the ones that communicate clearly when things break. PSEG understands this.

Verizon still has work to do.