During a sensitive period in Chinese politics, a widespread internet outage occurred in Shanghai at Telecommunications yesterday evening (August 30). The telecom authorities announced that there were partial line malfunctions. This marks the third occurrence of such a large-scale network interruption in Shanghai within two years, sparking speculations and theories ranging from a war rehearsal to stress testing.
Many netizens reported last night that Shanghai Telecommunications once again experienced a large-scale network failure, affecting both broadband and mobile signals. Users complained that customer service hotlines were completely unreachable.
Feedback from netizens indicated that areas such as Jiading, Pudong, Baoshan, and Yangpu were affected, with disruptions to both broadband and mobile signals, impacting a wide range of users. Numerous users reported that the 10000 customer service hotline was inaccessible, and the telecommunications app and fault reporting functions were down, obstructing user assistance channels, forcing users to find alternative ways to address the issues.
Several users stated that restarting their optical modems and routers themselves after the network outage proved ineffective, initially attributing the problem to their own devices or billing issues, only later realizing it was a widespread carrier fault.
According to a report from “First Financial” on the evening of August 30, following the sudden large-scale network outage in Shanghai Telecommunications, a journalist dialed 10000 (the nationwide official customer service hotline of China Telecom) and received a message stating that “Around 21:30 on August 30, 2026, an abnormality occurred in part of the fixed broadband services in Yecheng District, Jiading, Shanghai, affecting no other services. Currently, Shanghai Telecommunications is working at full capacity to repair and troubleshoot the issue and apologizes for any inconvenience caused.”
At 22:55, the Shanghai customer service of China Telecom issued a notification stating that at 20:30 on August 30, 2026, there was a network issue in part of the Jiading district of Shanghai Telecommunications, affecting broadband service users. Emergency measures were taken, and services began to resume from 21:20 onwards.
However, even until 21:59, some netizens expressed concerns that the services had not fully recovered, with one user posting, “Is this intentional by Telecom? It’s not fully restored yet?”
This is not the first time such an incident has occurred in Shanghai Telecommunications. Around 17:30 on August 26, 2024, there was a partial cloud broadband service anomaly, which was fully restored around 18:05 on the same day. Additionally, in the early hours of March 31, 2026, a citywide network disruption occurred, affecting areas like Pudong, Baoshan, Yangpu, and Jinshan for about 20 minutes to an hour. The reasons behind both incidents have not been officially disclosed.
The frequent large-scale network outages have led to speculation among netizens. Some questioned if the systems were under attack. Others speculated whether there was a significant event occurring or if authorities were intentionally conducting tests.
Some netizens linked the network disruption to geopolitics and military exercises. Discussions in comment sections posed questions if this was a city-level stress test, simulating how the city would function and the emergency capabilities when facing external blockades or special circumstances.