Telenor outage halts all Norwegian trains and disrupts emergency numbers 112 and 02800

Outage and rail shutdown

Thursday's failure hit Telenor, Norway's largest telecommunications operator, shortly after 16:00 local time (17:00 in Romania), according to Digi24. Rail traffic stopped roughly an hour later. The state rail company Vy said traffic was interrupted across the entire country, expected cancellations and delays, and warned that the length of the stoppage remained uncertain. The infrastructure manager Bane NOR ordered all trains stopped because traffic dispatchers and controllers could not guarantee contact with emergency services in the event of an accident. Vy told trains to reach the nearest stations, and passengers were allowed to leave or wait there. Emergency bus services were set up on key routes, including from Oslo to larger nearby cities.

A Bane NOR spokesperson told the news agency NTB:

Due to the telecommunications disruptions, we cannot establish a connection to the rescue services in an emergency.

Emergency calls

Police warned that calls to the emergency number 112 and the general police line 02800 might not go through, and fire and ambulance numbers were also affected. Officers in Oslo and other districts sent extra foot and car patrols to cover the lost phone access. Many ambulance dispatch facilities could not take reports, so people were asked to go to medical facilities in person. Police in Oslo also arranged uniformed officers in front of police stations, where residents could report in person. The Norwegian Directorate of Health advised people in urgent need to keep retrying or to call from a phone on a different mobile network. The only system that kept working was Nødnett, the internal radio network used by rescue workers and run by the Directorate for Civil Protection. Customers of other mobile operators were also affected.

Cause and company response

Telenor has not disclosed what caused the failure. The company said its afternoon problems affected several customers and organisations, and that the issues concerned voice communications. Telenor spokesperson Vetle Andersen told Aftenposten that the company had seen no sign of a hacking attempt.

Nothing indicates that this is a hacking or an ongoing attack.

Telenor also supplies the digital data and signalling infrastructure used by government bodies, rescue services and the Norwegian rail network, which makes the outage relevant beyond phone calls.

Earlier disruptions

Wnp.pl reports that a nationwide rail stoppage on 25 December 2024 was also linked to connectivity problems. On 29 September, a Telenor failure stopped SIM cards for 20,000 customers for technical reasons. In January 2026, an outage whose cause the operator did not disclose caused widespread problems with mobile internet and phone calls across the country. The cause of Thursday's failure has not yet been revealed.