A widespread electricity blackout across Spain and Portugal this week revealed critical vulnerabilities in the Iberian Peninsula’s telecoms infrastructure, prompting record levels of usage of Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite internet service.
According to data analysed by Financial Times, usage of Starlink surged by 35% above average on Monday during the blackout, with a 60% increase recorded in Spain on Tuesday as traditional mobile networks continued to experience disruptions. The figures, provided by internet analytics firm Ookla, reflected “record” Starlink usage across the region, with “thousands” of users turning to the satellite service, though exact user counts were not disclosed.
While Starlink maintained connectivity throughout the blackout, the quality of service declined as more users connected simultaneously. Some of the service’s Spanish ground stations may have been affected by the power outage, but Starlink connections remained viable through ground stations in nearby countries such as Italy.
Despite this performance, Starlink is not yet capable of offering widespread emergency coverage to millions of users during large-scale outages. Access still depends on users having sufficient battery life in their devices, which presents a key limitation in prolonged power failures.
The cause of the blackout is still under investigation. Spanish grid operator Red Eléctrica has yet to determine a definitive reason, though experts have speculated it could be linked to the grid’s inability to manage an unusually high influx of solar energy.
The blackout severely impacted mobile and internet coverage in both Spain and Portugal. According to Ookla, network consistency — a measure of service reliability — dropped by up to 50% during the outage on Monday afternoon. Thousands of mobile antennas went offline due to the power loss, leaving only those equipped with backup generators in operation.
“Too many people were trying to access too few resources,” said Claudio Fiandrino, a researcher at the IMDEA Networks Institute in Madrid. “That’s why during the recovery phase it was hard to get connectivity stable.”
Vodafone España reported that 70% of its mobile sites had backup generation at the onset of the blackout, but by 11pm, some regions — including Galicia, Castilla La Mancha, and Murcia — had only about 20% network coverage. Telefónica, another major provider, stated it prioritized critical infrastructure like emergency services and hospitals. It restored 95% of its mobile network within just over 24 hours, achieving full service normalization by Thursday.
Starlink’s increased use during the outage has highlighted how satellite-based internet can offer some resilience in the face of infrastructure failures, though not at the scale needed for mass public reliance. Ookla’s Luke Kehoe noted that Spain and Portugal are not unique in lacking robust battery backups across their mobile site grids.
In the UK, for example, Ofcom recently found that around two-thirds of the population could make emergency calls during short blackouts, thanks to backup generation at roughly 20% of mobile sites. However, fewer than 5% of UK sites have power backup for more than six hours, and Ofcom estimates it would cost £1 billion to ensure four hours of emergency access for nearly all residents.
Telecoms companies have argued that such investments are economically unfeasible. “Prohibitive” costs, coupled with tight profit margins in countries like Spain and Portugal — where user fees are among Europe’s lowest — have made resilience improvements difficult, Kehoe said. This contrasts with countries like Norway and Australia, where stronger regulatory frameworks and government grants support longer backup capabilities.
In Norway, for example, telecoms operators must provide two hours of battery backup in urban areas and four in rural regions. Australia has gone further, introducing grants to fund up to 12 hours of backup power at remote telecom sites.
The unprecedented scale of the blackout in Spain may serve as a wake-up call for policymakers, said Grace Nelson, an analyst at UK-based Assembly Research. “It’s likely to be a clarion call for government and regulators to pay attention to resilience,” she said.
As climate change leads to more frequent and intense weather events, telecoms resilience is becoming a growing priority for governments around the world — and satellite services like Starlink may increasingly play a role in future emergency response systems.
