Millions of mobile users in India faced widespread connectivity issues on Monday as Airtel’s network went down in several regions. The disruption, which began in Delhi-NCR, later spread to Mumbai, Bengaluru, and other cities, before affecting customers across the country.
Airtel’s Response to the Outage
Airtel confirmed the problem through an official statement. The company said, “Our customers from Delhi-NCR are experiencing some voice calling issues for the past hour or so. Significant part of the issue has already been resolved and our engineers are at work to resolve this fully. We deeply regret any inconvenience.”
By evening, many customers reported receiving text messages from Airtel saying services had been restored, although complaints were still visible online.
Scale of the Disruption
Data from Downdetector, a website that tracks service outages, showed a sharp spike in complaints. Around 4:32 pm, the platform recorded over 3,600 outage reports for Airtel, compared to its usual baseline of fewer than 15. By 6:40 pm, the figure dropped to fewer than 400, suggesting gradual recovery.
Most of the reported issues were linked to mobile phones, followed by signal drops and mobile internet disruptions.
Other networks were also affected, though on a smaller scale. Reports from Jio and Vodafone-Idea (Vi) users peaked at around 200 complaints before declining to around 130.
Regions Hit Hardest
A map on Downdetector highlighted that the outage was not limited to metros. Complaints came from Chandigarh, Ahmedabad, Guwahati, Madurai, and several cities in central India. This indicated the issue had spread nationwide.
User Reactions on Social Media
As the outage trended under #AirtelDown on X (formerly Twitter), frustrated users voiced their concerns. One customer wrote, “@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.”
@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.#AirtelDown #Airtel
— AMIT Kr. SANGWAN (@amitsangwan1111) August 18, 2025
Another user posted, “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.”
Some users also criticized Airtel for repeated service issues. One complaint read, “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!”
Situation Returning to Normal
By late evening, Airtel said its teams had resolved a large part of the issue and were continuing work to fully restore services. Complaints from Jio and Vi users also declined steadily.
Despite this, many customers remained concerned about the reliability of mobile networks, especially as disruptions caused difficulties in making urgent calls and accessing mobile data.