Fact Check: Telefonica hit by brief outage in Spain, no widespread network crash

Reuters

23-05-2025

Spanish telecom company Telefonica's services were briefly disrupted on May 20, contrary to internet posts that said the country had suffered its second communications blackout in a month.
Spain suffered a massive power outage on April 28, which also affected phone and internet services.
The May 20 disruption lasted a few hours and was limited to phone and internet users of Movistar, opens new tab and O2,, opens new tab due to a network update by owner Telefonica.
Telefonica's Operations Director, Sergio Sanchez, said in a video posted on Instagram, opens new tab on the morning of May 20 that all services were restored 'except for a case or two where teams were working.'
This information contrasted with posts on social media, opens new tab that said, 'BREAKING: Another massive network crash in Spain. The entire mobile network is down Spain just got hit with a full-scale telecom blackout - Movistar, Orange, Vodafone, O2, and Digimobil all went down. No signal. No internet. 112 emergency lines went dark in major cities like Madrid, Barcelona, and Valencia.'
A spokesperson for Spain's Ministry for Digital Transformation and the Civil Service said in an email to Reuters that the May 20 incident only affected Telefonica services, its customers' 112 emergency line access and landlines, and was fixed by noon, as the company announced. The rest of the telecoms operators mentioned had no significant incidents, the spokesperson said.
Telecoms operators in Spain are obliged by law, opens new tab to report an outage that affects telephone, internet or emergency services, the spokesperson said.
A spokesperson for Spain's largest operator, Orange's MasOrange, told Reuters that MasOrange's customers or services were not affected.
Some posts cited Downdetector, an online platform that provides status information on internet outages or disruptions, as the source of their information.
A spokesperson for the platform said Downdetector Spain received over 33,000 reports of fixed broadband issues with Movistar on May 20, and customers of O2, Vodafone, Digi, Orange and MasMovil also reported similar outages. However, mobile services were not affected and the disruption was nowhere near the scale of the recent nationwide power outage.
The telecoms directorate of Spain's National Authority for Markets and Competition, service providers Digi and Vodafone did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Misleading. Telefonica's services in Spain were disrupted briefly on May 20, but there is no evidence of a complete network outage.
This article was produced by the Reuters Fact Check team. Read more about our fact-checking work.