A major portion of Charlotte is now experiencing a Verizon Wireless outage, which could take up to 12 hours to resolve, according to the company.

At about 11 am this morning, several customers began complaining about outages around the airport.

Mecklenburg County EMS event sent out an alert telling residents to use non-Verizon phones to call 911, if needed;

Reports coming in from @VZWSupport about service disruptions in the Charlotte market. Please use non Verizon phone for 911.

— Mecklenburg EMS (@MecklenburgEMS) November 20, 2019

At about 1 pm, The Charlotte Douglas Airport announced that the source of the outage was a cut fiber line.

.@Verizon cell service at the terminal is down due to a cut fiber that feeds to the Airport’s Beacon tower. Please select CLT Free WiFi to connect online. It is free and unlimited. Verizon is working to restore service. We apologize for the inconvenience.

— CLT Airport (@CLTAirport) November 20, 2019

Throughout the afternoon, the outages spread to several other sections of our city. As of 7:30pm this evening, this is what the outage map looks like for Verizon customers:

A growing number of people are now speculating that the outages could have something to do with the new 5G service that Verizon recently started testing around the Queen City, although we could not get confirmation of this from Verizon.

Verizon’s new 5G network is capable of speeds up to 1 Gbps (gigabit per second), compared to 4G, which allows for speeds that are typically between 5 and 12 megabits per second (Mbps), or 50 Mbps at peak speeds. A gigabit is 1,000 times faster than a megabit, so the 5G network is potentially up to 20 times faster than 4G LTE at its fastest.

UPDATE 12/21/2019 12:00pm:

Verizon has now fixed most of the issues with their service around Charlotte, with a few small outage spots remaining;

This is a developing story. We will update this article as new information comes in.

Tomorrow night, the Charlotte region will be in the prime path of an ultra rare meteor storm.

According to meteor scientists Esko Lyytinen and Peter Jenniskens, there’s a “good chance” that we will see the first alpha Monocerotids meteor storm since 1995, a storm that produced roughly 400 meteors per hour.

The meteors have precipitated from the constellation Monoceros, a faint arrangement just left of Orion that means ‘unicorn’ in Greek.

You’ll want to go outside at least a half-hour before peak time (about 11:30 pm) to be sure you can see the storm and to give your eyes time to adjust to the dark night sky.

You can download a GPS-synced skymap on your phone to easily locate the Monoceros constellation to see the source of the meteors, although they will likely fill up a large portion of the night sky.

The United States Federal Reserve has just officially approved the $66 billion Truist bank merger. The new bank will combine the assets of BB&T and SunTrust to make the 6th biggest bank in America, and their decision to build a new headquarters in Uptown Charlotte will officially reinstate our title as the second biggest banking city in America.

According to a press release, BB&T and SunTrust expect to complete the merger on December 6, 2019, pending satisfaction of customary closing conditions. BB&T common shares will become Truist common shares and SunTrust common shareholders will receive 1.295 Truist common shares for each share of SunTrust common stock they own at the closing.

“We are pleased to have received regulatory approval to merge two strong companies with complementary business models and a high level of cultural alignment. We’ll be even better together for our clients, teammates, communities and shareholders,” said BB&T Chairman and CEO Kelly King, who will serve as chairman and CEO of Truist.

“We will build upon our mission- and purpose-driven cultures and work to ensure a positive experience for our clients,” said SunTrust Chairman and CEO Bill Rogers, who will be president and chief operating officer of Truist prior to succeeding King as CEO in September 2021. “Following months of thoughtful collaborative planning, we are prepared to begin a successful integration.”

The new bank will build its headquarters in Uptown Charlotte’s Hearst Tower.

The headquarters will include an expansive Innovation and Technology Center to drive digital growth and development. The former community banking centers of both companies will remain in operation in Winston-Salem and Atlanta.

The board of the new company will be comprised of an equal number of executives from both companies.

What do you think about the merger? 

ApartmentList.com just released their October rent report, showing that the national average rent reached $1,476, a 0.1% increase compared to September.

The report also noted rental increases in most cities throughout North Carolina. “Charlotte saw a $5 increase in monthly rent prices, reaching an average of $1,249, the 4th most expensive in the state.”

Here are some additional highlights for North Carolina:

• The average rent in Chapel Hill dropped by $1, but remained the most expensive in the state ($1,415).
• For an apartment in Raleigh, renters currently pay $1,230/month, on average. That’s just $50 more than what renters pay further up North in Wake Forest – $1,180.
• Greensboro and Winston-Salem see monthly gains of $3 and $7 respectively to their average rents.