MTN data network down in two provinces

MTN customers in the Free State and Western Cape have complained that they cannot use mobile data services on the operator’s network.

A surge in reports on Thursday morning was recorded on MTN’s Downdetector page from around 06:00 AM, with the main issue being flagged as “Mobile Internet”.

Several customers from Cape Town and Bloemfontein reported they could not use mobile data.

One subscriber in Kenwyn in Cape Town said the issue started around midnight.

Several customers were complaining about the same problems on Twitter.

“Your Internet is not working in Stellenbosch, cannot connect to WhatsApp to log a fault. Cannot buy mobile data using the banking app, no Internet,” one user posted.

The graph below shows the increase in reports about issues on MTN’s network in South Africa on Thursday morning.

Interestingly, Downdetector also showed Capitec bank experiencing issues around the same time.

MyBroadband tested logging into Capitec’s app from Gauteng. It failed on an MTN connection but worked when connected to other networks.

This suggests MTN’s network problems may affect customers elsewhere in the country when trying to access specific services.

MyBroadband contacted the operator for feedback on the outage, and it said the issues would be resolved within the next 30 minutes.

“MTN can confirm that we experienced some downtime in the Western Cape and Free State due to urgently planned repair work,” said MTN corporate affairs executive Jacqui O’Sullivan.

“Teams are busy with the rollback on work done, and we anticipate that all impacted areas will be back online within the next 30 minutes [10:40].”

MTN apologised to affected customers.

“The work was urgently required to ensure we can maintain the high quality performance that our customers receive on our network.”

An MTN spokesperson had previously told Fin24 on Thursday morning its network would be fully operational by 09:20.

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