Thousands of Czechs left without internet after O2 network outage

Mobile operator O2 has been hit by a widespread outage affecting both mobile and broadband internet services — the first complaints from customers began rolling in shortly before 9 a.m. By 10 a.m., DownDetector, a service that tracks outages of popular online platforms, had already logged several thousand individual reports of problems.

The situation varies from user to user: some have no internet connection at all, while others have a connection but at painfully slow speeds. "The internet sort of works, but my phone only shows a couple of signal bars, and pages take forever to load," one customer said. Another complained that instead of the gigabit fibre-optic plan they were paying for, they were only getting 180 Mbps upload and 70 Mbps download speeds.

Problems reported nationwide

Most complaints about the lack of connectivity are coming from residents of Prague and Brno, though reports have also surfaced from other regions, including Litoměřice.

O2 has confirmed it is aware of the issue and is actively working to fix it. According to company spokesperson Petra Javornická, the outage was caused by network damage during excavation work, which degraded internet access for some customers. The company did not specify exactly where the network was damaged, when service would be fully restored, or how many customers were affected by the current outage.

Once the network is back up, users will likely need to restart their devices to restore service. "If you're having trouble, try restarting your device — possibly more than once. We apologise for the inconvenience," the O2 spokesperson added.

A similar outage a year ago

This isn't the first time O2's network has run into trouble — a similar situation occurred almost a year ago, in August of last year, when the company experienced repeated outages affecting tens of thousands of people. At the time, O2 attributed the disruption to a software error in the core of its network and admitted that roughly a third of its customers nationwide had been affected. The company said it was working with its suppliers on measures to prevent a repeat of the issue, but did not disclose any details.

Read also: Mobile operator in Czechia: which one to choose in 2026

Source: novinky.cz