Internet Disruption Report: March 2020

Although Internet disruptions have always been problematic for affected users, March 2020 was arguably the month where they became of ever greater global concern as so many shifted to working and learning from home due to COVID-19 driven lockdowns and shelter-in-place orders. The Internet has become a lifeline, supporting communication with loved ones, enabling online education, and facilitating days full of videoconferencing in place of in-person meetings.

While this blog has never claimed to be exhaustive in its coverage of Internet disruptions, it has endeavored to catalog the various causes of those disruptions, and most months see quite a few documented causes. Interestingly, March only saw documented disruptions due to power outages and cable/fiber issues, with a couple of additional due to possible network issues. (There were, of course, a number of other observed disruptions, but root causes were unable to be identified or confirmed through research or social media outreach.)

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Internet Disruption Report: February 2020

A year ago, in my “Last Month in Internet Intelligence: February 2019” post for Oracle’s Internet Intelligence blog, I noted that “February was a surprisingly quiet month for Internet disruptions.” Interestingly, that appeared to hold true a year later, with fewer major disruptions observed than in prior months. In addition, the disruptions covered this month had a more limited set of causes — a DDoS attack, network maintenance, and cable/fiber issues — no power outages in Venezuela or wide-scale Internet shutdowns in the Middle East as have been seen in prior months.

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