Spain’s mobile network crashes in massive outage

Spain’s entire mobile network crashed on Tuesday, four weeks after the country suffered a national power blackout. All leading network providers, including Vodafone were down.

There was no signal, and no internet. Even 112 emergency lines went dark in major cities like Madrid, Barcelona, Seville and Valencia. The networks collapsed following a network upgrade by Telefonica, as mentioned in Independent. 

"We have carried out some network upgrades that have affected specific services at some companies. We are working to resolve this," a Telefonica spokesperson said

Emergency services had to provide new telephone numbers for those in need as phone lines collapsed. Landline telephones were the worst affected but voice services by Telefonica were affected to some extent too.

The Downdetector website reported that issues began around 2 am, with 72 per cent of reports related to outages, 18 per cent to no signal, and 10 per cent to a total outage in their area. Spain's Ministry for Digital Transformation and Civil Service said it is monitoring the situation and requesting precise information and timescales for a solution.

This event follows a major power outage in late April that left millions across Spain and Portugal without electricity for almost 23 hours. The blackout affected traffic lights, street lamps, payment terminals, and screens. Hundreds of flights were cancelled at airports across Spain and Portugal. Spain ordered inquiries involving government, security agencies, and technical experts. A high court judge launched a probe into whether a cyber attack caused the outage.