Yesterday, on 18 August 2025, if you used Airtel’s network, maybe your mood too must have been bad! Calls were not getting connected, messages were not getting through, and the internet was completely down. Let’s understand in simple words why all this happened and what was its scene.
What happened?
On Monday, Bharti Airtel’s network faced a big problem in Delhi and NCR. From around 3:30 PM in the morning, customers’ phone calls were not getting through – neither outgoing, nor incoming. Internet was also totally zero, and messages also got stuck. According to Downdetector, by 4:30 PM, there were more than 3,600 complaints, which is normally less than 15-20. This problem was so big that the #AirtelDown hashtag started trending on X!
Airtel said around 5 PM, “Delhi-NCR customers are facing some issues in voice calling. A major part of the problem has been resolved, and our team is quickly fixing the rest of the things. Sorry for the inconvenience.” By 7 PM, the network started coming back a little, and by 10:30 PM, the complaints had reduced to less than 150.
What was the reason for the problem?
Airtel has not officially given the exact reason, but this is not the first time it has happened. In April this year too, there was an outage of more than an hour in NCR. Before that in May, Airtel’s network was down in Tamil Nadu and Kerala, due to a “node” failure. It seems that this time also some similar technical issue must have happened, but Airtel did not give much detail on it.
How many people were affected?
According to the June stats of Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, Airtel has more than 1.9 crore mobile subscribers in Delhi circle. With such a large user base, this outage became a big problem for many people. People were sharing their frustration on X – some were saying that calls were not getting through, some were crying for internet, and some were having fun by making memes!
What did Airtel do?
Airtel Cares handle (@Airtel_Presence) replied to every user on X, “We are facing network outage and our team is working to fix it as soon as possible.” One user wrote, “My wife is thinking that I am ignoring her calls, thanks Airtel!” Airtel showed some transparency, but remained silent on the exact reason and ETA. By night the network started coming back, but some users faced problems for a little longer.
This was not the first time
This was Airtel’s second major outage this year in Delhi-NCR. On April 18, a small outage happened after midnight, which lasted for more than an hour. In May, customers of Tamil Nadu and Kerala were also facing the same problem. It seems there is something wrong with Airtel’s network nodes, due to which this issue is occurring again and again.
Conclusion
If you are an Airtel user and were in Delhi-NCR yesterday, then this outage must have been quite irritating for you. Airtel handled the problem quickly, but did not tell the exact reason, which is a little disappointing. If your work or communication got affected due to this reason, then tell us in the comment – what did you do about this outage? And will you continue with Airtel or are you thinking of trying some other network?