Phones Ring Again in Spain as Telecommunications Gradually Recover

After Monday's energy blackout, many citizens remain 'disconnected' in terms of communication. In many parts of the country, phones are silent and WhatsApp messages only show a single tick, meaning they are sent but not received. "The situation is gradually improving," industry sources tell this newspaper.

Currently, Vodafone Spain's network has restored 95% of its mobile traffic, with 92% of its nodes active. "Service is being provided normally," the company highlights. Meanwhile, Telefónica, MasOrange, and Digi have indicated that they have already restored around 90% of their mobile services following the blackout that affected the country this past Monday. "Our priority from the outset was to keep essential services active and manage resource usage," a Telefónica spokesperson tells this newspaper. "We are working to fully restore normality," they add.

Although the Canary Islands escaped the energy blackout, by Monday night, Canary citizens found themselves isolated after the island community suffered a telecommunications system failure—affecting both mobile and fixed internet, as well as phone calls. The incident occurred unevenly from midday Monday, impacting Movistar, Jazztel, and Orange, and became more widespread from 21:30 (mainland time). By Tuesday morning, connection issues persisted, although recovery was gradually underway throughout the day.

As a result, the Canary Government activated the emergency level of the Territorial Emergency Plan for Civil Protection of the Autonomous Community of the Canary Islands (PLATECA) at 22:30 on Monday, in response to the massive outage of all essential communication services in the archipelago.