Since about noon, Telcel’s massive voice and data outage has kept thousands of customers in southeast Mexico without cellphone service. The outage has taken away internet access for Telmex customers as well. Land lines and Cablemas customers were not affected.
Service was restored to parts of Mérida by 4 p.m., but broader service recovery statistics were not yet available by 4:45.
The outage hit customers in Yucatán, Tabasco, Campeche, Quintana Roo and Chiapas for at least four hours. Customer care call centers were also out of service.
The source of the massive outage has not been announced. Telcel’s online pressroom, its Facebook page and Telmex’s blog have neither acknowledged the problem nor offered any reassurances.
Today is the Candlemas holiday throughout Mexico, which may have hampered efforts to restore service efficiently. Users who flocked to the Telcel customer service center on Calle 56 at 57 found the offices to be closed.
The dominant wireless communications company in the country, Telcel has 70 million customers nationwide. Both Telcel and Telmex are subsidiaries of Mexico City-based América Móvil, one of the largest corporations in the world.
