Due to disruptions in the mobile network, the authorities in Berlin, Bremen and Hamburg received increased notifications on Thursday afternoon that the emergency number could not be reached. In Bremen and Hamburg, the situation centers issued official hazard reports that the emergency numbers 110 and 112 had been impaired.
“At the moment there seems to be disruption in the entire Hamburg telephone network. In some cases, both some of our departments and the emergency call 110 are affected,” said a tweet from the Hamburg police. The presence of officers on the street will be massively increased.
In Berlin, the emergency call works on the part of the fire brigade, said a spokesman on request. If you can’t get through, it’s because of your own telephone network. A police spokesman said in the capital that there were no known disruptions to the 110 emergency call. In other federal states, disruptions were initially not known. Deutsche Telekom made it clear that its network was working without any problems.
In the O2 network, cell phone calls in the afternoon were temporarily not possible for some users. The reason for the restrictions on mobile telephony was a fault on a voice transmission server, the company said. However, a large part of the telephone calls can be transmitted via other servers. They are working flat out to ensure that customers can make unlimited calls again. “We regret the inconvenience and ask for your patience.” Calls with apps like Whatsapp were possible via data transmission servers. You can read more about this here: Mega network failure in Germany – problems with all providers
In Hamburg, citizens should contact a patrol car or a guard if necessary. In an absolute emergency, the DRK emergency number 19222 is manned by the police, it said.
The impairments in mobile communications in Bremen were largely resolved by late Thursday evening. The Bremen fire brigade had temporarily set up more than 40 contact points in the city area for those seeking help because people could not always reach the emergency numbers 110 and 112 from their mobile phones. A fire brigade spokesman had said that the control center’s technology was fine. The guards and contact points on the market square, on the Sielwall, at the Vegesack train station and on the waterfront should be manned until midnight.
The district of Oldenburg had also reported “large-scale and nationwide disruptions to mobile phone networks and the Internet”. Emergency calls should primarily be made via the landline, the agency said.