outage

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Massive power outage in Spain, Portugal leaves millions in dark

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National grid operators in Spain and Portugal confirm that a massive electrical blackout has hit the Iberian Peninsula today, starting just a couple of minutes after 12: 30 pm Central European Summer Time (10: 30 am UTC, or about 6: 30 am US Eastern Daylight Time). The outage appears to have resulted in near-total loss of electricity in Spain, Portugal, the Principality of Andorra, and at least some portions of southwest France.

The impacts are widespread and pervasive; in major cities like Madrid, trains are not running, airports are unable to operate, and businesses and schools have closed. Citizens are still able to use cellular networks to communicate so far (most cell towers and network operations centers have battery or generator backup systems).

Image of a line graph showing electricity demand dropping to almost nothing.

Electrical demand curve from Red Eléctrica site showing the outage.

Electrical demand curve from Red Eléctrica site showing the outage. Credit: Red Eléctrica

Bloomberg energy reporter Akshat Rathi posted on Bluesky that Spanish grid operator Red Electrica claims the outage is due to “grid oscillation,” a phenomenon that occurs when the system is unable to suppress oscillations that normally happen as sources and load enter and leave the system. Rathi quotes Bloomberg cybersecurity reporter Ryan Gallagher, noting that a cyber attack has been ruled out, and the fault is likely technical:

Initial investigations into the cause of the outages suggest a technical fault rather than a cyberattack, according to the European Union Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA). “For the moment the investigation seems to point to a technical/cable issue,” said a spokesperson for the agency in an emailed statement. “Nevertheless, ENISA is closely monitoring the situation and we are in contact with the relevant authorities at national and EU level.”

Ars spoke directly to a reader named Tiago Carvalho, currently in Lisbon, Portugal. According to Carvalho, banks and supermarkets in Lisbon have been closed for hours, with a small number of shops and restaurants remaining open and accepting only cash. Tourists in Lisboa are still walking around enjoying the sunny weather, but locals are doing what they can to stock up, anticipating three or more days without power. Carvalho says only his 5G data connection is functional; when reached via Discord, he described the conditions like this:

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“Nightmare” Zipcar outage is a warning against complete app dependency

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Zipcar’s rep declined to specify how many people were affected by the outage.

A warning against total app reliance

Zipcar’s app problems have not only cost it money but also traumatized some users who may think twice before using Zipcar again. The convenience of using apps to control physical products only exists if said apps are functioning and prepared for high-volume time periods, such as Thanksgiving weekend.

Despite Zipcar’s claims of a “small percentage” of users being affected, the company’s customer support system seemed overwhelmed. Long wait times coupled with misinformation regarding things like fees make already perturbed customers feel more deserted.

Those are the pitfalls of completely relying on apps for basic functionality. There was a time when Zipcar members automatically received physical “Zipcards” for opening doors. Now, they’re not really advertised, and users have to request one.

A Zipcard.

A Zipcard. Credit: Getty

Zipcars also used to include keys inside of locked cars more frequently. Reducing these physical aspects may have saved the company money but effectively put all of Zipcar’s eggs in one basket.

Nightmarish app problems like the one Zipcar experienced can be a deal-breaker. Just look at Sonos, whose botched app update is costing it millions. Further, turning something like car rentals into a virtually app-only service is a risky endeavor that can quickly overcomplicate simple tasks. Some New Zealand gas stations were out of luck earlier this year, for example, when a Leap Day glitch caused payment processing software to stop working. Gas stations that needed apps for payments weren’t able to make sales, and drivers were inconvenienced.

Apps can simplify and streamline while delivering ingenuity. But that doesn’t mean traditional, app-free measures should be eliminated as backups.

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Verizon customers face mass-scale outage across the US

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5Gpocalypse —

More than 100,000 reports appeared on Downdetector.

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A map showing hotspots of outages primarily in the east coast and central US, but some in California as well

Enlarge / A Downdetector map showing where Verizon outages are reported.

Wireless customers of Verizon and AT&T have found that they cannot make calls, send or receive text messages, or download any mobile data. As of this article’s publication, it appears the problem has yet to be resolved.

Users took to social media throughout the morning to complain that their phones were showing “SOS” mode, which allows emergency calls but nothing else. This is what phones sometimes offer when the user has no SIM registered on the device. Resetting the device and other common solutions do not resolve the issue. For much of the morning, Verizon offered no response to the reports.

Within hours, more than 100,000 users reported problems on the website Downdetector. The problem does not appear isolated to any particular part of the country; users in California reported problems, and so did users on the East Coast and in Chicago, among other places.

By 10 am, some AT&T users also began reporting problems. Outage maps based on user-reported data found that the outages were especially common in parts of the country otherwise affected by Hurricane Helene.

After a period of silence, Verizon acknowledged the problem in a public statement. “We are aware of an issue impacting service for some customers,” a spokesperson told NBC News and others. “Our engineers are engaged and we are working quickly to identify and solve the issue.”

However, the spokesperson did not specify why the outage was occurring. It’s not the first major online service outage this year, though. AT&T experienced an outage previously, and the CrowdStrike-related outage of Microsoft services caused chaos and made headlines in July.

Update 5: 37 PM ET:  Some users are reporting they have regained service, and Verizon confirmed this in another statement: “Verizon engineers are making progress on our network issue and service has started to be restored. We know how much people rely on Verizon and apologize for any inconvenience some of our customers experienced today. We continue to work around the clock to fully resolve this issue.”

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