NetCologne Network Outage Disrupts Internet, Emergency Services, and Businesses

A major technical failure left thousands across Cologne and surrounding cities without internet, phone services, and access to emergency numbers for hours on Wednesday.

The outage, caused by a core network failure, affected NetCologne services from 9:00 AM to 5:15 PM, disrupting internet, phone, and emergency call systems.
Over 4,400 outage reports were logged on monitoring platforms within minutes, with the highest concentration in Cologne but also impacting cities like Düsseldorf, Bonn, and Aachen.
Emergency services in Cologne and Düren, including 112 and 110, were temporarily inaccessible for NetCologne users, prompting authorities to recommend alternative networks or the NORA app.
Businesses, including supermarkets, faced issues processing card payments due to the network disruption, while the Cologne/Bonn airport reported minor IT impacts but no flight delays.
NetCologne announced the resolution of the issue by late afternoon but did not provide details on the cause or measures to prevent future occurrences.