In November, many of us in the United States think about the Internet in terms of having to fix the connectivity problems at a relative’s house while visiting them for Thanksgiving, or using it to escape from those same relatives for a few minutes by browsing social media or watching a video. However, across the rest of the world, the connectivity problems seen in November weren’t the kind a quick router reboot would solve. Blackouts caused Internet disruptions in Curaçao and Venezuela, fiber/cable issues caused problems in Haiti, Venezuela, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and the Gambia, and routing issues disrupted connectivity in Indonesia and Ecuador. However, the most significant Internet disruptions in November were week-long government directed shutdowns in Iraq and Iran.
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Internet Disruption Report: October 2019
Notable Internet disruptions observed in October were generally short-lived and due to power outages, cable cuts, and other acknowledged but unexplained network issues. However, the most significant disruption observed during the month occurred in Iraq, and was due to a government directed shutdown of Internet connectivity for over a week in response to violent protests. Total losses due to this shutdown were estimated at nearly 1 Billion USD.
(Apologies for posting this month’s update a few weeks later than usual – sometimes life and work get in the way of blogging…)
Continue reading →Internet Disruption Report: September 2019
September… when school is back in session, the leaves begin to change, and stable Internet connectivity apparently remains elusive in many countries. Although the Internet disruptions observed around the world this during last month were not due to the change of seasons or the start of school, their underlying causes were very familiar, including power outages, national exams, severe weather, network issues, and DDoS attacks.
Continue reading →Internet Disruption Report: August 2019
The August 1994 issue of WIRED Magazine hardly hinted at the coming ubiquity of the Internet, featuring articles on CD-ROM games and reviews of the Apple Newton. Commercial Internet services were very much in their infancy at the time, with the issue containing just a few advertisements for nascent Internet Service Providers, such as the one shown below. Twenty-five years ago, Internet disruptions were more likely to be caused by overloaded modem banks or congestion at one of the few peering points available at the time.
Today, Internet connectivity is significantly more ubiquitous, faster and less expensive (in most places), and generally reliable. With increased Internet availability and usage, however, disruptions become more noticeable, and impact a significantly larger population of users. In August, we observed Internet disruptions around the world due to power outages, national exams, and network issues. Several government-directed disruptions were widely reported as well, but were not easily observable in monitoring tools.
Continue reading →Internet Disruption Report: July 2019
After a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad month in June, the number and severity of significant Internet disruptions observed in July was markedly lower. The month was book-ended by exam-related outages, while other observed connectivity disruptions were related to a massive power outage, severe weather, government direction, and fiber/cable issues. Several additional unattributed disruptions were also seen over the course of the month.
Continue reading →Internet Disruption Report: June 2019
Simply put, June was a pretty rough month for the global Internet. In addition to all of the usual small/transient issues, there were quite a few significant disruptions that occurred over the course of the month. This month’s post covers government-mandated Internet shutdowns due to political unrest and national exams, disruptions due to cable damage, power outage-related Internet outages, two large route leaks, and a couple of localized disruptions (for good measure).
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Internet Disruption Report 