Massive Mobile Network Outage Hits Spain, Millions Left Without Service

Millions of people in Spain lost their phones and internet connection early Tuesday morning due to a massive mobile network outage. Services in key cities like Madrid, Barcelona, Seville, Valencia, Bilbao, and Malaga were disrupted by the outage, which started at around 2 am and got worse by 5 am. It affected all of the major telecom companies, including Movistar, Orange, Vodafone, Digimobil, and O2. Users complained about a total signal outage, making it unable to utilise mobile data, send or receive texts, or make calls.

Emergency services were also severely impacted by the outage, which prevented access to the EU-wide emergency number 112 in a number of areas, including the Valencia community, Extremadura, Aragón, and the Basque Country. In order to protect public safety, authorities promptly issued alternate phone numbers. Millions of users experienced severe inconvenience as a result of the outage, even though certain services were progressively restored later in the morning.

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Spanish media said that Telefonica, the nation's second-largest firm and a major operator for the majority of Spain's mobile infrastructure, blamed the failure on a significant technical issue that occurred during a network upgrade. All voice-related services were disrupted to varying degrees, and landline services were particularly heavily damaged. "We have carried out some network upgrades that have affected specific services at some companies," a Telefonica representative told UK daily The Independent, acknowledging the issue. He added, "We're trying to fix this."

Additionally, the Ministry for Digital Transformation intervened, stating that it is keeping an eye on the matter and looking for more information. Less than a month has passed since Spain and portions of Portugal were left without electricity for about ten hours during a statewide power outage known as the 2025 Iberian Peninsula Blackout. Payment terminals, public safety infrastructure, and transportation networks were all negatively impacted by the power outage. Theories of cyberattacks first emerged but were later disproved by authorities.