Oslo, Norway - Telenor, Norway's major telecom provider, experienced significant technical difficulties on Wednesday, disrupting mobile phone and internet services nationwide. The outage also impacted emergency services, including the 113 emergency number for urgent medical assistance, 112 for police, and 110 for fire departments.

State authorities advised those needing emergency assistance to remain on the line, even if they couldn't hear a ring tone, as calls were experiencing delays. Thomas Berg of the state health directorate confirmed that while connections were slow, it was still possible to get through. He urged callers to stay patient and wait for the connection to establish.

In Oslo, the 113 emergency number was temporarily unavailable for about 10 minutes, but calls eventually went through after a delayed ring. Alternative emergency numbers for specific counties were also available.

This marks the third significant outage for Telenor in the past three months, prompting an investigation by the national communications authority, Nkom. Jon-Eivind Velure, director of Nkom, expressed deep concern over the recurring issues, calling them "extremely serious and unacceptable."

Telenor later attributed the outage to a power failure at one of its central facilities, which may have also affected backup batteries. The company denied any involvement of sabotage or cyberattacks.