Airtel users across India ran into a wall Monday afternoon as one of the country’s largest mobile networks went down, knocking out both calls and internet access for thousands.
The disruption started around 3:30 PM IST on August 18th, according to outage tracker Downdetector, which logged between 2,000 and 3,600 complaints at the peak. Users reported dropped calls, dead mobile data connections, and in some cases, phones showing no signal at all.
Airtel acknowledged the issue, saying customers in Delhi-NCR were primarily affected, but social posts suggest the blackout extended to other regions as well. The company claims “a significant part of the issue” has already been fixed, with engineers still working on a full restoration.
Unlike localized tower issues, today’s outage hit both voice (CS domain) and mobile data (PS domain) services at once—an indicator that the disruption likely originated at the core network level, rather than isolated radio or backhaul failures. While Airtel hasn’t confirmed the cause, such symptoms typically point to problems in HLR/HSS databases, signaling gateways, or even nationwide routing misconfigurations.
This isn’t the first time Airtel customers have been left stranded. A similar network glitch in late 2024 caused 40–46 percent of users to report total service loss, underscoring how fragile telco infrastructure can be at scale.
For subscribers, even short disruptions ripple far beyond missed calls. A few minutes offline means failed UPI and OTP transactions, interruptions in business communications, and broken access to services that hinge on SMS verification.
If you’re still offline, options are limited: switch to Wi-Fi if available, use a secondary SIM, or keep an eye on Airtel’s official updates.