Today, Tuesday, May 20, 2025, at 1:10 PM EEST, Spain is grappling with yet another “technological disaster” that’s starting to feel like a national pastime. Just four weeks after a massive power outage plunged the country into darkness, Spaniards are now facing a fresh nightmare—no mobile networks or internet. If you’re going to cut services, why not go all out? It seems Telefónica, the telecom titan behind this latest fiasco, took that motto to heart with a botched network update that’s left the nation reeling.

From Madrid to Seville, Barcelona to Valencia, Spaniards woke up to a surreal new world where smartphones have morphed into pricey paperweights and laptops serve as chic coffee-table decor. According to LBC, the blackout of mobile and internet services has engulfed the entire country, trapping millions in a digital “black hole.” The biggest casualties? Major cities. In Madrid, office workers stared mournfully at unresponsive monitors; in Barcelona, students couldn’t download their lectures; and in Valencia, folks were left clueless about whom to call to vent their frustrations.

Complaints poured in like a May downpour: “How am I supposed to work?”, “How will my kids learn?”, “Where’s my Netflix?!” Spaniards bombarded their service providers with pleas, only to be met with shrugs. The culprit? None other than Telefónica, the backbone of Spain’s telecom infrastructure, which seems to have tripped over its own cables.

If you thought a Wi-Fi drought was the worst of it, think again. This outage didn’t spare emergency service lines either. The pan-European 112 emergency number went silent in several regions, leaving people in a bind. The Valencia government scrambled to set up an alternative to its 112 service, while Aragon’s authorities took to social media (where it still worked) to announce, “The 112 phone line is down.” They offered three backup numbers—but good luck dialing them without a signal. Welcome to the pinnacle of European “reliability”!

So, what sparked this digital doomsday? Enter Telefónica, Spain’s second-largest company, operating across 18 countries and boasting itself as one of the world’s top mobile network providers. Deciding it was time for a “minor network upgrade,” the telecom giant turned a routine tweak into a national crisis. A spokesperson told the Spanish newspaper ABC that the issue stemmed from a “botched update,” assuring the public that engineers are “working on a fix.” Great—somewhere out there, engineers are toiling away, though without connectivity, it feels more like a fairy tale than a rescue mission.

Here’s the kicker: just a month ago, on April 28, Spain (and neighboring Portugal) endured the infamous “Iberian Peninsula Blackout of 2025,” leaving millions without power for 10 hours. That was apparently just a warm-up. The Spanish government was quick to rule out a cyberattack back then, blaming some vague voltage fluctuations in high-voltage lines. But after Telefónica’s latest stumble, faith in official explanations is wearing thin. Thankfully, Las Palmas and the Canary Islands dodged both outages—perhaps they’ve wisely decided to disconnect from mainland Spain altogether.

Across the country, companies are stuck in limbo: systems are down, software won’t load, and computers refuse to play ball. Businesses relying on online operations are literally “frozen” in place. Spaniards, still recovering from last month’s candlelit evenings, now joke that they’re on the fast track to the Stone Age—no electricity, no signal, no internet. But let’s get serious: how does a global telecom giant so spectacularly flub a network update, leaving an entire nation offline? And why, after April’s blackout, was no one prepared for round two?

Spain seems to have fallen victim to its own tech obsession, paying the price with outages, chaos, and a chorus of citizen outrage—still denying the possibility of a cyberattack.

As Telefónica scrambles to restore order, Spaniards are adapting to this “digital fast.” Some nostalgically recall the days of postal letters, others hunt for alternative communication methods, and many just wait for normalcy to return.

One thing’s for sure: after these “double blackouts,” Spain deserves a medal for patience—or at least a discount on telecom services.