Bharti Airtel customers in several Indian cities were left frustrated on Sunday after a widespread network disruption disrupted mobile and internet services. Bengaluru, Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, and Chennai were among the hardest-hit regions, with thousands of users reporting complete service blackouts.

Outage-tracking website DownDetector showed that complaints started to surge around 11 am and peaked at 12:11 pm, registering more than 6,800 reports in a short span. Around 52 per cent of users said they had “No Signal”, 31 per cent reported issues with mobile internet, while 17 per cent faced a total blackout.

On social media platform X, the hashtag “Airtel Down” quickly began trending as customers voiced anger over the sudden breakdown. One Bengaluru user posted: “Unable to make any calls and no mobile data. Shows as not registered.” Another added: “Same here in Bangalore. I can’t book a cab in a few hours for a meeting.”

Others criticised the company for its silence. “Yes whole internet broadband mobile all down in Bengaluru without any warning and the worst part is that Airtel is not taking any complaint via their app or IVRS and no response over X as well,” a user wrote.

Some users tried to lighten the mood with humour. “Airtel down in Delhi? For the last 1 hour, my wife thinks I’m ignoring her calls. Thanks airtelindia for turning a network issue into a marriage issue,” one post read.

Soon after complaints poured in, Airtel Cares issued a message acknowledging “temporary connectivity disruptions”. The company said: “We apologise for the inconvenience. The issue you're facing appears to be due to a temporary connectivity disruption and is expected to be resolved within 1 hour. Once that time has passed, please restart your mobile phone to restore services. Thank you.”

Previous outage

This marks the second major outage for Airtel in less than a week. On Monday, the telecom operator had faced a similar breakdown across key cities such as Delhi, Surat, Mumbai, Nagpur, Bengaluru, Chennai and Kolkata. At the time, the company issued a statement apologising and assured that its team was “actively working to resolve the issue and restore services promptly.”