Downdetector, portal that monitors glitches, saw over 3,600 reports of Airtel outages around 4.32 pm on Monday; there was a decline to less than 2,000 by 5.30. Users across mobile networks in India — starting with Airtel, then Jio and Vodafone-Idea (Vi) — were experiencing a prolonged outage on Monday, August 18.
The service interruption was confirmed by Airtel in a post on social media platform X as many faced problems making calls and using mobile internet. The issue was first flagged in Delhi-NCR, and later in Mumbai and Bengaluru too, spreading across India soon after.
“Our customers from Delhi-NCR are experiencing some voice calling issues for the past hour or so,” a statement by the company read. It added, “Significant part of the issue has already been resolved and our engineers are at work to resolve this fully. We deeply regret any inconvenience.”
Downdetector, a portal that monitors tech glitches, saw over 3,600 reports of Airtel outages at around 4:32 pm on Monday. There was a gradual decline to less than 2,000 reports by 5.30 pm. Responding to a post on X which claimed Airtel mobile network users of Delhi-NCR are experiencing problems making calls with, the company said it was working to resolve the issue.
“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. Thanks, Team Airtel,” the company said on X in reply to the post. Most reported Airtel outages were related to mobile phones on Downdetector, followed by signal and mobile internet issues.
A map of affected areas on Downdetector showed Chandigarh, Ahmedabad, Guwahati and Madurai also in the red, meaning much higher than usual complaints from across all corners of the country. Cities in central idea were no different on this count, as of 6 pm, Monday, August 18. “@Airtel_Presence @airtelindia services are completely down. Unable to make or receive calls and even messages are not working. This is causing serious inconvenience. Please resolve the network outage immediately and confirm ETA for restoration,” another user wrote, to which Airtel responded with the above-mentioned statement.
Another user wrote, “If you are an #Airtel user, and unable to make calls, you’re not alone. Seems like a widespread outage. Connectivity of @airtelindia facing serious issues. Don’t panic if you are not able to get in touch with your loved ones. Just be patient. #Airtel #Mobile,” one user wrote on X as #AirtelDown trended on the platform. One user claimed that it is not just a localised issue in Delhi-NCR, adding that Airtel network is down across the entire country. “Ported from Jio to Airtel due to internet issues, but facing even bigger problems now. Not able to use data while on calls & no proper response from customer care. Really disappointing!” an X user complained.
