Airtel mobile subscribers in Mumbai and Maharashtra circles are facing a service outage (Call / SMS / Data) due to a technical glitch in operators Mumbai based central POP (point of presence) that cropped up today morning. Our sources confirms that a major fire in early hours at Airtel’s Malad (Mumbai) data centre / central POP (point of presence), which has impacted their GSM/Mobile network and Enterprise services like IPLC, Leased lines, MPLS and Internet services.

According to Airtel spokesperson “A technical outage has affected our network in the western region, resulting in disruption of some services. We are working toward rectifying the outage at the earliest. We deeply regret the inconvenience caused to our customers.”

Various TelecomTalk readers and followers on twitter also reported that Airtel network is down and Incoming / Outgoing call, SMS and Data services are not working in South Mumbai, Navi Mumbai, GhatKoper, Mulund and verious sub-urban areas of Mumbai since morning. The also affected adjoining areas, including Pune, Virar, Palghar, Dhanu Road in Maharashtra circle.

Update : AirTel has issued a official statement at 19:37 stating “There was a network outage in the Western region this morning as a result of a fire in our central POP (point of presence) location in Malad, Mumbai.

Our teams have been working since morning to normalise all affected services. Mobile voice, Blackberry and SMS services have largely been restored and are stabilizing. We are working towards restoring 2G & 3G data services later tonight. However, for the Enterprise services like IPLC, Leased lines, MPLS and Internet services, the restoration work is in progress and these services are likely to be restored in the next 24 hours. We deeply regret the inconvenience caused to our customers.”