France's second-largest telecom provider faces widespread mobile network outage, company says investigating the issue

France

's second-largest telecom provider, SFR, is currently facing a widespread mobile network outage. The downtime has made accessing texts, calls, and mobile internet impossible for thousands of users across the country. The company has confirmed that it is aware about the outage and is currently investigating the issue. The outage is also affecting broadband contract holders with SFR, preventing internet use in their homes. Reports of the disruption began arriving around 11:00 AM local time (2.30 PM IST), with hundreds of users quickly reporting the network as down. At its peak, around 4:53 PM IST, outage tracking website Downdetector recorded over 10,000 reports of the

SFR

network being down from across France. However, normal service is expected to be resumed later this evening, June 16.

What SFR said about the widespread mobile network outage

Replying to a post on social media platform X (earlier Twitter), SFR wrote (translated from French): “We would like to inform you that a technical incident is currently impacting our network. Our technical teams are fully mobilized to restore the situation. We apologize for any inconvenience.”

As per Downdetector, the outage hasn’t been resolved for all SFR users. Report of the same has reduced but are still affecting nearly 2,000 users at the time of writing.This is not the first time French residents are facing widespread mobile network outage. In November 2024, users of the 'Free' network experienced an outage that, in some cases, lasted for several hours.Recently, in April, a massive blackout swept across Spain, Portugal and parts of southern France disrupting life for nearly 50 million people throughout Europe. The outage brought subway systems to a standstill, cut off phone services, disabled traffic lights, and rendered ATMs inoperable. The outage also forced the suspension of Madrid Open matches. Public transport systems, airports, traffic lights, and phone services across major cities like Madrid, Barcelona, Lisbon, and parts of southern France were affected.