Spain hit by telecoms blackout

Telefónica has now restored full service after blackout triggered by a failed network update

Telecommunications giant Telefónica said on Tuesday that it has fully restored service across Spain following a significant disruption to both fixed and mobile networks that left millions of residents disconnected for several hours.

The blackout, which began around 5 am local time, was triggered by a failed network update, according to company officials.

"All service has been reestablished except for a case or two where teams are working," said Telefónica's Operations Director Sergio Sánchez in a video statement posted online early Tuesday afternoon.

The outage affected fixed-line phone and internet services, as well as all major mobile networks, including those operated by Movistar, Orange, Vodafone, DigiMobil and O2.

The disruptions were reported across nearly all regions of the country, including Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, Malaga, Seville, Murcia, Bilbao and more rural areas like Aragon, Extremadura and Navarra.

According to outage monitoring service Downdetector, the majority of complaints stemmed from fixed internet failures, although mobile users across the country were left without the ability to make calls, receive texts or access mobile data.

Telefónica, which operates the core infrastructure for many of these networks, acknowledged that the update had a broader impact.

Social media was flooded with frustrated messages from users, many of whom relied on the internet for work or school. "Hi, @movistar_es, it's already 9:10 a.m. Are you going to explain what's going on? The network has gone down… again," wrote one user on X.

"You'll see how they can issue the bill without any problems."

The outage also affected critical emergency services, rendering the European emergency number 112 unreachable in parts of the country.

Authorities in Valencia and Aragon were forced to activate alternative numbers to ensure emergency communication remained available.

A spokesperson for Telefónica said earlier in the day that "we have done some network upgrade work which has affected some companies' fixed communication services (voice and internet). We are working on resolving this and some of the affected services have already been recovered, such as the 112 emergency services, which have now been re-established."

The blackout had wide-reaching consequences beyond the consumer sphere. Several companies reported being unable to access internal systems, load software, or connect to the internet, effectively halting operations for hours.

Telefónica operates in 18 countries and stands as the second-largest company in Spain.

This latest incident comes on the heels of the "2025 Iberian Peninsula Blackout," a nationwide power outage that less than a month ago left Spain and parts of Portugal without electricity for nearly ten hours.

That previous event severely affected transport systems, payment terminals, and critical public safety infrastructure.

At the time, the Spanish government ruled out a cyberattack as the cause, instead attributing the failure to a combination of infrastructure overload and technical malfunction.

The Spanish government has yet to issue an official statement regarding Tuesday's outage.

The Ministry of Digital Transformation is said to be closely observing the situation and gathering additional information.