Bharti Enterprises’ Bharti Airtel Limited was reported to have experienced a massive network outage on May 13. The most severely affected cities were Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Chennai, Madurai, and South India. Downdetector, the global network outage detector, reported that the Airtel network dropped at 19:00 hrs on Tuesday. During the three peak hours of outage,  65% of users reported no signal, while 15% of users complained about mobile internet disruption. 

Airtel Users Showed Dissatisfaction and Concern

During the outage, multiple Airtel users posted their concerns and dissatisfaction about the services of Airtel on social media platforms and the Downdetector website. 

An Intel user reported on Downdetector, 

“No Airtel Network since 2000 hrs. in Chennai Ashok Nagar. Unable to contact my son in Hosur Where he informed through other phone network that Airtel is not working and since this minute Airtel has not resolved this issue nor any statement from the Airtel Authorities”

Another user commented that he had been experiencing disruptions for the past two weeks. He said

“Whats with @Airtel_Presence @airtelindia the network seems down and have been giving too many problems since 2 weeks both broadband and data.. Yet Airtel is least bothered hopefully they loose some customers then they would come to Sense” 

Disruption Peak Hours

The peak hours of the disruption were reported to be between 1900 to 2100 hrs.  Reports of disruption spiked from 388 at 18:58 hrs to 8,306 by 20:28 hrs. However, following this peak, the graph showed a sharp decline, indicating that Airtel had begun resolving the issue.

Airtel Outage in December 2024

In December, Airtel experienced a massive outage throughout the country. The outage affected both mobile data and broadband services. It left thousands of users unable to make calls and use the internet. In the current outage, there are fewer reports of mobile data outages. However, users are complaining that they are unable to make calls. 

In December 2024, Downdetector reported that around 46% of users faced total blackout, 32% had no signal, and 22% were having issues with mobile connectivity.

Airtel Outage in Nepal February 2025

In the first week of February 2025,  internet users across Nepal experienced a complete service shutdown, lasting nearly an hour, causing widespread disruption. Nepal’s Internet service providers (ISPs) reported that the disruption may be caused by fibre cuts in Airtel’s network in Birgunj and Bhairahawa. Sudhir Parajuli, president of the Internet Service Provider Association of Nepal (ISPAN) said at that time 

“It is unusual for problems to occur simultaneously at two locations, but at around 9 pm, internet services around the country went down for 47 minutes. Initially, we thought Indian providers had cut the service due to unpaid dues.”

The network disruption was restored in an hour.