Airtel subscribers across India experienced a major network outage on Monday, with thousands of users reporting issues with both mobile data and voice services. According to data from the Downdetector, an outage tracking platform, several reports of service disruption began to spike around 3:30 PM IST. The outage, which affected major cities including Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, and Chennai, left many subscribers unable to make or receive calls, send SMS messages, or even access the internet.
The telecom giant has acknowledged the disruption. In a statement, Airtel said, “We are currently experiencing a network outage, our team is actively working to resolve the issue and restore services promptly. We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience caused.”
According to Downdetector, complaints began spiking sharply around 4 PM, quickly climbing past 2,500 at the highest point. Normally, Airtel sees only a small number of scattered reports, making the sudden jump a clear indicator of the scale of the outage.
Disruption was not confined to a particular location:
The disruption was not confined to a particular location, as users from major cities including Delhi, Mumbai, and Bangalore voiced concerns across social media.
Breakdown of the reports showed that 56% of affected customers experienced mobile calling problems, 26% faced issues with mobile internet, while 18% said they had no network signal at all. The live outage tracker also displayed heavy clusters of reports in metropolitan areas, confirming that both data and voice connectivity were hit by the service failure.
People react:
In the meantime, numerous annoyed customers turned to X, the social media platform owned by Elon Musk (previously known as Twitter), to voice their grievances. Several Airtel subscribers vented their frustration through witty memes and humorous jabs. The unexpected disruption quickly triggered a flood of online reactions.
Airtel is down for several users across Delhi-NCR. Are you also facing this issue?#AirtelDown pic.twitter.com/nzy1VOrTnS
— TrakinTech (@TrakinTech) August 18, 2025
