Airtel Zambia subscribers were left frustrated over the weekend after the mobile network experienced a major outage, disrupting essential mobile services across the country.
The outage on Sunday affected internet access, mobile money transfers, online taxi services, and betting platforms, leaving thousands of users stranded.
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Airtel Zambia’s widespread service disruption
While Airtel Zambia claimed that the outage only impacted internet services, several customers reported being unable to make calls or access their mobile money accounts. The outage significantly affected daily activities, with businesses and individuals relying on mobile transactions facing unexpected downtime.
By late afternoon, Airtel Zambia announced that services had been restored, with the company’s communications office issuing an apology to affected customers.
“Airtel Networks Zambia Plc would like to apologise to our esteemed customers for the partial loss of our internet services in some parts of the country as well as disruption to the *117# service this morning.” said Airtel in an official statement.
Lingering network issues and customer complaints
Despite the company’s assurance that normal services had resumed, complaints from customers persisted into late Sunday, with many still facing network problems. Users took to social media to air their frustrations, demanding better service reliability from Airtel Zambia.
Adding to the discontent, some customers claimed that their data and airtime had mysteriously depleted following the restoration of network services, raising further concerns about transparency and service quality.
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Airtel Zambia’s response and next steps
Airtel Zambia has yet to provide a detailed explanation for the cause of the outage or announce measures to prevent future disruptions. Customers continue to call for improved network stability and better communication from the telecom provider during service failures.
As one of Zambia’s leading telecom providers, Airtel Zambia faces growing pressure to ensure more reliable network performance and prevent future outages that could impact businesses and livelihoods across the country.