If you’re a Verizon Wireless customer, you may be experiencing some data problems on your device. That’s because the company is currently suffering a nationwide data outage. This is the second time in less than a month this has occurred. There seems to be some exceptions to the outage, but chances are you are affected. Our advice is to try to connect to a Wi-Fi network if you’re planning on downloading games from the Android Market or starting up some multiplayer.

Brace yourself PS3 and PSP owners, because something is brewing. Of course, if you’ve tried to log into the PlayStation Network in the past few hours, you’ve already released that. Sony’s PlayStation Network is down, which means no signing in to play games online, browse the internet, view streaming videos or shop at the PlayStation Store. The outage occurred earlier today (September 21, 2011), one day after Sony’s PS3 firmware 3.72 went live.

Sony hasn’t revealed any information on potential causes for this PSN outage yet…

The Great PlayStation Network Outage of 2011 first went down on April 20, 2011. North American, European, Australian and some Asian gamers went 24 days without any PSN services until they were restored May 15, 2011. They had to wait until June 1, 2011 to get access to the PlayStation Store again. Of course, that seems like nothing compared to what Japanese and other Asian territories have had to go through. Initial PlayStation Network services only first resumed there on May 28, 2011 and now, after over two months, the Japanese PlayStation Store is finally back online….

It has been over a month in the making, but the PlayStation Network is finally going to be restored in Japan and countries in Asia. More specifically, most services will be back online in Singapore, Japan, Taiwan, Malasia, Thailand and Indonesia. Countries such as South Korea and Hong Kong will have to deal with the outage a little longer. Sony is still dedicated to completely restoring the PlayStation Network by the end of the month.

The PlayStation Network has been down for so long, I’ve lost track of exactly how many days have passed. In the beginning days of the outage, I would constantly be on the lookout for an update, an email, anything that would confirm to me that PSN was back online. We’ve been threatened with identity theft, we’ve sat back while hackers bickered back and forth and we’ve definitely been more than patient. Through all this waiting and stress, I feel as if I’ve come to accept the fact that PSN is gone. Actually, I’m not even thinking about the service anymore when I’m not writing about it.

The PSN outage is affecting everyone right now. Customers have to deal with not being able to play games online or download new content. Worst of all, customers are worrying about the safety of their identities. For Sony, this hack has required the company to spend an unspecified (but undoubtedly large) amount of money in security costs, employee overtime and loss of revenue. Sony also is paying for the AllClear ID Plus service for millions of customers, and it’ll lose even more money once it gives everyone free games and services once PSN returns. Third-party game publishers are taking a big hit too as evidenced by Capcom.

So, I have bad news and worse news. Ready?

The PlayStation Network is still down. It’s been down since April 20, 2011, which means we’re on day 20 without online multiplayer, Home, PlayStation Store access and Qriocity. This is the bad news. The worse news is that there is a slight chance that the PSN may not be back up until May 31, 2011. A Bloomberg representative got the disheartening news from Sony’s Shigenori Yoshida.

Sony originally expected to have rudimentary PSN services…

Last week The Subcommittee on Commerce Manufacturing and Trade sent a letter to Kazuo Hirai, chairman of the board of directors at SCEA, asking for answers related to the PSN security breach. Hirai responded to Congress’ 13 questions with a letter of his own that is dated May 3, 2011. Hirai explained how things transpired day by day, and what it is doing to prevent this kind of thing from ever happening again.

The past few weeks have not been good for Sony and PlayStation Network account holders, what with the hackers breaking in and taking private data from over 77 million people. It only got worse when the problem extended to Sony Online Entertainment on May 2, 2011, resulting in that service being shut down, over 24 million accounts compromised and around 12,700 credit card numbers were stolen from an outdated database. Sony Online Entertainment has now stepped up to offer details on what its going to be doing to make things right for its violated customers, starting with the people who play DC Universe Online…

Today, Sony announced it has created a Welcome Back Appreciation Program that will contain free 30-day PlayStation Plus and Qriocity subscriptions for all of its customers. The program will also consist of free downloads. Most importantly, Sony will provide a complimentary service for customers looking to defend themselves against identity theft. An exact date for PSN restoration hasn’t been provided, but Sony does have a timeline of sorts that dictates how it will bring PSN back online.