Airtel Network Down Again! Users in Kolkata, Mumbai & Other Cities Face Major Outage — Company Issues Response

Lakhs of Airtel customers were troubled by a major network outage on Saturday morning, when the mobile network suddenly stopped working in major cities like Kolkata, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Delhi. Users were neither able to make calls nor access mobile data and SMS. The disruption started around 10:30 am and immediately led to a flood of complaints on social media, with #AirtelDownX trending on Twitter.

Users reported disruption across the country

Many customers reported that the outage affected both 4G and VoLTE services, and the network was not coming back even after restarting the device. Most complaints came from metro cities — Kolkata, Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad and Bengaluru — but scattered disruptions were reported in smaller towns as well.

Outage-tracking website "Downdetector" also showed a sharp spike in complaint reports. Nearly 20,000 complaints were registered in just one hour. Of these, 58% complaints were about mobile internet issues, 27% about “no signal” and 15% were related to call failures.

Airtel's Official Response

After the backlash, Bharti Airtel issued a statement:

“Some of our customers faced intermittent network issues due to a technical glitch. Our teams immediately started fixing the issue and now services have been restored in most of the affected areas. We are grateful for the inconvenience caused,” the company said.

Airtel clarified that the outage was a temporary glitch, neither related to any cyberattack nor any government action. The company also ensured that essential services, such as emergency helplines, remained completely unaffected.

Why is this a big deal

This is not the first time in 2025 that Airtel users have faced an outage on such a large scale. Similar problems were faced in large parts of North India in March as well. This situation raises questions about network reliability, especially when both businesses and households heavily depend on uninterrupted internet.

Experts say that there is more pressure on telecom providers to maintain stable networks during 5G expansion. Frequent outages not only irritate customers but also damage the credibility of companies – and competition in the Indian market is already quite tough, where Reliance Jio, Airtel and Vodafone Idea compete.

Social Media Reactions

After the outage, there was a flood of reactions from users on social media. Some people showed their anger, while others shared memes and jokes. Many users also questioned whether telecom providers are making the right investments in infrastructure, while data demand in India is breaking records every year.

Big Picture

India is one of the largest telecom markets in the world, with more than a billion mobile subscribers. In the era of digital payments, online education and remote work, network stability is no longer a luxury, but a necessity. Such outages show that telecom operators will have to focus more on strong backup systems and faster response mechanisms.

For now Airtel has said that "services are now normal" in most areas, but customer anger is likely to persist for a few more days. It remains to be seen whether this incident was a one-time glitch or a signal of some deeper problem in the Indian telecom infrastructure.