A major outage in Telefónica’s fixed-line network this morning disrupted emergency response systems and business operations across multiple Spanish regions, highlighting the growing vulnerability of critical infrastructure to planned maintenance failures. The incident, which began in the early hours of Tuesday, was triggered by routine update work on Telefónica’s MPLS network, a key component of […]
A major outage in Telefónica’s fixed-line network this morning disrupted emergency response systems and business operations across multiple Spanish regions, highlighting the growing vulnerability of critical infrastructure to planned maintenance failures.
The incident, which began in the early hours of Tuesday, was triggered by routine update work on Telefónica’s MPLS network, a key component of national data routing.
The disruption affected 112 emergency services in regions such as Andalusia, Aragón, La Rioja, the Basque Country, Galicia, and the Valencian Community.
According to elDiario.es authorities in affected areas provided temporary contact alternatives in the Basque Country and the Valencian Community, to maintain access to emergency services.
While Telefónica – one of the largest service providers in Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking markets – has not released a detailed public statement beyond these acknowledgments, the company is reported to have been actively coordinating with these regional authorities to address the service interruptions.
The Spanish telecoms operator described the disruption as affecting only “specific services” and said it was being resolved.
However, reports suggest that it lasted long enough to disable critical public infrastructure. In Andalusia, for instance, according to Spanish radio network CadenaSER – emergency calls were not received between 07:15 and 08:40, and in La Rioja, routing problems persisted for nearly an hour. By mid-morning, most services had been restored.
The outage had a wide impact, affecting multiple telecom providers—including Movistar, Orange, Vodafone, Digi, and O2—and causing widespread connectivity issues across major cities like Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, and Seville.
According to HuffPost España, Downdetector reported that around 72% of complaints this morning involved fixed internet services, followed by signal loss and complete outages.
This disruption follows on the heels of major power outages in April that affected large parts of Spain and Portugal.
That earlier incident, linked to high-voltage grid failures, underscored concerns about the reliability of national infrastructure networks across the Iberian Peninsula.
