A major network outage was impacting Telkom mobile users in South Africa on Monday. (Update: Services were restored shortly after 4pm — details below).

According to Downdetector.co.za, a website that monitors user complaints about network availability, there was a spike in reported problems related to the Telkom network.

The problems appear to have started at around 2pm, though it’s not yet clear what led to the widespread gremlins.

Telkom’s mobile network appeared to be completely inaccessible from TechCentral’s offices in Johannesburg. A phone with a Telkom Sim simply reported that there was “no service”.

The downtime came a day after two subsea cables were severed north of Durban, impacting connectivity along Africa’s east coast. However, it is unlikely that the events were linked.

Social media users took to X and other platforms in droves on Monday to complain about network access problems on Telkom. The company responded to some of the complaints confirming that there was a “national outage”.

Restored

Update: In a statement in response to a query from TechCentral, Telkom said shortly after 4pm on Monday that there was a “temporary network outage affecting services countrywide.

“Our team is actively addressing the issue to ensure it is resolved as a matter of urgency. The network is now restored but some parts of the network are still synchronising and we expect the entire network to be fully online in an hour. Our technical teams are investigating the cause of outage.”