Cloudflare’s network spans greater than 330 cities in over 120 international locations, the place we interconnect with over 13,000 community suppliers with the intention to present a broad vary of companies to tens of millions of consumers. The breadth of each our community and our buyer base offers us with a singular perspective on Web resilience, enabling us to look at the impression of Web disruptions at each a neighborhood and nationwide stage, in addition to at a community stage.
As we now have famous prior to now, this submit is meant as a abstract overview of noticed and confirmed disruptions, and isn’t an exhaustive or full record of points which have occurred through the quarter. A bigger record of detected site visitors anomalies is out there within the Cloudflare Radar Outage Center.
Within the third quarter we coated fairly a couple of government-directed Internet shutdowns, together with many meant to stop dishonest on exams. Within the fourth quarter, nevertheless, we solely noticed a single government-directed shutdown, this one associated to protests. Terrestrial cable cuts impacted connectivity in two African international locations. As we now have seen a number of instances earlier than, each surprising power outages and rolling energy outages following military action resulted in Web disruptions. Violent storms and an earthquake predictably induced Web outages within the affected international locations. And surprising points with maintenance efforts induced outages at two European suppliers, whereas Verizon clients in a number of US states skilled a short however unexplained outage.
On October 1, native cellular supplier MTN Rwanda (AS36890) published a post on X alerting subscribers of a double fiber reduce in Tanzania and Uganda which will impression connection high quality. On account of these fiber cuts, Web site visitors started to drop sharply after 12:45 native time (10:45 UTC), with a full outage seen between 13:15 – 13:30 native time (11:15 – 11:30 UTC). Site visitors then started to quickly get better, recovering to anticipated ranges round 19:00 native time (17:00 UTC). A number of hours later, MTN Rwanda published a followup post confirming that every one companies had been restored.
The African Undersea and Terrestrial Fibre Optic Cables (AfTerFibre) map exhibits that along with connecting with networks to the north and south in Tanzania and Uganda, it seems that connections are additionally accessible by way of networks to the west within the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Nonetheless, MTN Rwanda’s upstream providers and/or peers will not be routing site visitors by way of DRC-based networks, which means that they couldn’t be used as a backup path when the apparently simultaneous fiber cuts occurred.
On November 30, native cellular supplier Airtel Niger (AS37531) posted a thread of messages on X apologizing for Web service disruptions, explaining that (translated) “Certainly, as a consequence of a simultaneous interruption on the nationwide optical fiber on the Niamey-Dosso, Niamey-Balleyara exits, our web companies are utterly interrupted all through the territory, past our management.” These simultaneous fiber cuts resulted in a close to full outage between 17:30 native time (16:30 UTC) on November 29 till 19:45 native time (18:45 UTC) on November 30.
It appears uncommon that the message thread was not posted till after the outage was resolved. It’s attainable that Airtel Niger themselves had no backup connectivity, and couldn’t submit an replace till connectivity was restored. Alternately, provided that the primary submit of the thread begins with “[COMMUNIQUÉ IMPORTANT📢]” (“[IMPORTANT PRESS RELEASE 📢 ]”), it’s attainable that the alert and apology was communicated by way of extra official channels, corresponding to Airtel’s web site, in a well timed method, with the thread on X merely a follow-up as soon as Web companies have been once more accessible.
Instability in a rustic’s electrical infrastructure typically causes widespread energy outages, which, in flip, disrupt Web connectivity. This occurred on October 18 in Cuba, the place a post on X from the Ministry of Energy and Mines of Cuba famous (translated) “Following the surprising disconnection of the Antonio Guiteras CTE, the Nationwide Electrical energy System was utterly disconnected at 11 a.m. in the present day. The Unión Eléctrica is engaged on its restoration.” The ability outage induced Web site visitors throughout the nation to drop by greater than half inside minutes (15:15 UTC). Connectivity was disrupted for roughly three-and-a-half days, because it returned to anticipated ranges round 23:00 native time on October 21 (03:00 UTC on October 22).
The Ministry posted a number of standing updates on October 19 and 20, protecting the work being completed to revive energy throughout the nation. A final X post on October 22 signaled the top of the facility outage, proclaiming (translated) “At 02:44 pm the Nationwide Electrical System was synchronized.”
A number of weeks later, energy points once more impacted Web connectivity in Cuba. On November 6, the Electrical Union of Cuba (Uníon Eléctrica) posted on X that (translated) “14:48 hours. Robust winds brought on by the extraordinary Hurricane Rafael, trigger the disconnection of the Nationwide Electrical System. Contingency protocols are utilized.” The timing of this submit aligns with a pointy decline in site visitors noticed from Cuba, which fell sharply round 14:30 native time (19:30 UTC). Over the next days, after Hurricane Rafael handed the island, the Uníon Eléctrica posted quite a few updates on the restoration {of electrical} service. Web site visitors appeared to return to anticipated ranges round 13:00 native time (18:00 UTC) on November 9, though full restoration {of electrical} companies took a number of days longer.
On December 4, Cuba suffered its third nationwide energy outage in as many months. Early that morning, the Ministry of Energy and Mines posted on X that (translated) “At 2:08 this morning, the Electrical System, SEN, was disconnected when the Antonio Guiteras thermoelectric plant went out as a result of computerized tripping.” The lack of this electrical energy as a result of failure of this era plant induced a major drop in Web site visitors from Cuba, falling roughly 60% as in comparison with the earlier week at simply earlier than 02:15 native time (07:15 UTC). Site visitors recovered to anticipated ranges virtually a day later at round 00:30 native time (05:30 UTC). This timing aligns with a follow-on X post from the Ministry that introduced that every one items had been synchronized, signaling a restoration {of electrical} service.
An article published in The Guardian on October 25 famous that “The French Caribbean island of Guadeloupe has been left completely with out energy after putting staff seized management of the territory’s energy station.” Employees entered the facility station’s command room “and induced an emergency shutdown of all of the engines”, in line with the article. The ability outage brought on by this “emergency shutdown” resulted in site visitors dropping practically 70% as in comparison with the earlier week at 08:30 native time (12:30 UTC). Though “restored electricity supply for the 230,000 affected households was expected at 3 pm local time (19:00 UTC) at best”, it seems that restoration took considerably longer than anticipated, as Web site visitors didn’t return to anticipated ranges till round 22:00 native time on October 26 (02:00 UTC on October 27) . A press release from the government at 11:00 native time (15:00 UTC) on October 26 gave an replace on the restoration efforts, noting (translated) “160,000 customers have had their electrical energy restored. The restoration of service for the 70,000 clients nonetheless reduce off is continuous, with a return to regular anticipated over the weekend.” It additionally famous that “76% of Orange subscribers have been in a position to regain their community connection. 1,800 properties are nonetheless with out web.”
Energy outages in Kenya resulted in a number of Web disruptions throughout each the second and third quarters of 2024. An identical occasion occurred through the fourth quarter as effectively. An X post from Kenya Power contained a “Buyer Alert” issued at 01:28 native time on December 18 (22:28 UTC on December 17) that knowledgeable clients that “We’re experiencing a widespread energy outage affecting a lot of the nation, besides components of Western and North Rift areas.” This outage induced Web site visitors from the nation to drop by over 70% beginning simply after midnight native time on December 18 (21:00 UTC on December 17). On December 18 at 07:35 native time (04:35 UTC), an update from Kenya Power posted to X reported that energy had been restored to all affected areas. Web site visitors from the nation had recovered to close anticipated ranges by that point as effectively.
At 20:30 native time on October 9 (00:30 UTC on October 10), Hurricane Milton made landfall in Florida as a Class 3 storm. Harm from Milton was in depth, together with flooding, downed bushes and energy strains, and harm to properties and companies. The ability outages and different infrastructure harm brought on by the storm, coupled with evacuation from impacted areas, resulted in a notable Web disruption at a state stage. As seen within the graph under, peak site visitors ranges on October 10, after Milton’s arrival, have been roughly 40% decrease than the previous days. As restoration and restoration efforts started over the next days, and as evacuees returned to house, college, and work, the state’s Web site visitors started to regularly improve.
This gradual restoration can also be seen within the collection of maps under, which illustrate cities the place Internet traffic was over 50% lower than the identical time the prior week, with snapshots taken at 09:00 native time (13:00 UTC) on October 10, 11, and 14. On October 10, over 70 cities had considerably decrease site visitors, whereas on October 14, it was simply over 10 cities.
On December 14, Cyclone Chido induced vital destruction on the French territory of Mayotte within the Indian Ocean. Energy, water, and communications infrastructure were all damaged, in addition to properties and public amenities. Over three dozen individuals were killed, with 1000’s extra injured. With such widespread devastation, Web site visitors from the nation was additionally impacted, as can be anticipated. Chido made landfall in Mayotte early within the morning on December 14, and site visitors dropped sharply round 09:00 native time (06:00 UTC), inflicting a near-complete Web outage. After extraordinarily sluggish progress over the next week, a diurnal sample is as soon as once more seen, with peak site visitors ranges persevering with to regularly improve by way of the top of the month. As of the third week of January 2025, Mayotte’s Web site visitors continues to slowly improve, however stays effectively under pre-Chido ranges.
A magnitude 7.3 earthquake struck 24 km WNW of Port-Vila, Vanuatu at 17:46 native time (01:47 UTC) on December 17. Web site visitors from the nation dropped sharply virtually instantly, falling practically 90% in comparison with the earlier week. A big drop in introduced IPv4 handle area was additionally noticed, suggesting that harm from the earthquake took core community supplier infrastructure offline as effectively. Restoration was sluggish, with Web site visitors not returning to anticipated ranges till round 23:00 native time (12:00 UTC) on December 26.
An editorial published on The Maritime Executive web site highlights that Vanuatu is presently reliant on the Interchange Cable Network 1 (ICN1) submarine cable connection to Fiji for worldwide Web connectivity. The editorial states that “A fireplace on the cable touchdown station briefly interrupted the facility provide, disabling web site visitors. The connection was restored 10 days later…” The decision of the facility outage on the cable touchdown station roughly aligns with site visitors returning to anticipated ranges, suggesting that this was a major driver of the drop in site visitors seen from Vanuatu after the earthquake. Starlink’s satellite tv for pc Web service offers some nominal redundancy, as the company announced service availability on October 7. The TAMTAM submarine cable, connecting Vanuatu to New Caledonia, is anticipated to be prepared for service in 2026 — as soon as accessible, it is going to present extra redundancy for Web connectivity.
On October 25 in Mozambique, mobile Internet connectivity across multiple providers was shut down after protests towards the re-election of the ruling Frelimo social gathering turned violent. Beginning round 13:00 native time (11:00 UTC), vital drops in site visitors have been noticed throughout AS30619 (Telecomunicações de Moçambique), AS37342 (Movitel), and AS37223 (Vodacom). Each Vodacom and Movitel skilled close to full outages virtually instantly, whereas some site visitors remained on Telecomunicações de Moçambique till simply earlier than 02:00 native time (00:00 UTC) on October 26. Connectivity was restored the morning of October 26, as site visitors returned round 08:00 native time (06:00 UTC). Nonetheless, after connectivity returned, some social media platforms and messaging functions remained unavailable.
Simply over every week later, on November 3, subscribers on these cellular networks skilled one other Web shutdown. At round 20:30 native time (18:30 UTC) site visitors dropped considerably on every of those networks, with connectivity disrupted for practically 12 hours earlier than recovering round 08:00 (06:00 UTC) the morning of November 4. Related shutdowns (“Web curfews”) have been noticed November 4-5 and November 6-7 on all three networks, and November 7-8 on Movitel and Vodacom. In accordance with a published report, the nation’s Minister of Transport and Communications “admitted that Web entry was restricted so as ‘to keep away from the destruction of the nation’”, however shifted blame to the impacted companies suppliers, claiming that once they observe misuse of their companies, they will take the initiative of interrupting the companies, as a part of their “civil accountability” to safeguard “the soundness and welfare of the inhabitants”.
An Web disruption noticed in Syria on November 9 could have been brought on by harm from an Israeli airstrike near Aleppo and Idlib reported to have taken place earlier that morning. Web site visitors from the nation dropped by about 80% at round 04:00 native time (01:00 UTC), with introduced IP handle area from the nation falling considerably at the moment as effectively. The disruption lasted roughly 4 hours, with site visitors and introduced IP handle area returning to anticipated ranges round 08:00 native time (05:00 UTC).
Inside evaluation of city-level Web site visitors exhibits an identical disruption in Aleppo, suggesting that it could have been brought on by the airstrike.
Russian missile strikes on November 17 targeting electrical power infrastructure in Ukraine resulted in rolling energy outages in a number of areas throughout the nation. As we now have seen a number of instances all through the practically three-year-old battle, these energy outages lead to disruptions to Web site visitors, impacting each service supplier infrastructure and subscriber connectivity.
Through the interval between 07:30 native time (05:30 UTC) on November 17 and 02:00 native time (00:00 UTC) on November 23, we observed lower Internet traffic as compared to the previous week in Odessa, Zaporizhzhia, Mykolaiv, and Sumy. Site visitors in Odessa initially dropped on November 17 by round 50% as in comparison with the prior week, whereas on November 18, site visitors dropped by over 20% within the different areas. Site visitors largely recovered in Odessa by November 21, whereas the other regions took several additional days.
Related assaults happened only a few days later, with additional Russian airstrikes again targeting electrical infrastructure in Ukraine. As soon as once more, Ukrainian officers carried out emergency energy outages, which impacted Web site visitors in a number of areas throughout the nation. Beginning round 07:00 native time (05:00 UTC) on November 28, we observed traffic drop by as much as 65% as in comparison with the earlier week in Kherson Oblast, Mykolaiv, Ternopil Oblast, Rivna, and Lviv. Site visitors remained decrease over the subsequent a number of days, however seems to have usually recovered by December 1.
In accordance with the picture under, which changed the homepage of Swiss supplier Salt Mobile (AS15796), reported upkeep took the community utterly offline early within the morning of December 3.
The outage lasted practically three hours, with noticed site visitors at or close to zero, between 01:25 and 04:20 native time (00:25 – 03:20 UTC).
A December 10 update from Tusass A/S (AS8818, formerly TeleGreenland) defined why the supplier skilled an entire Web outage between 02:30 and 05:15 native time (04:30 – 07:15 UTC) that morning. The submit famous “This occurred as a result of preventive upkeep was to be completed on the connections in Canada between 02:00 and 06:00 final night time, however with a mixed fault on our connection to Denmark we misplaced nationwide connectivity. Luckily, the fault on the connection to Denmark occurred on land, and subsequently simple to restore.” The graphs under present that during the outage, site visitors from the community dropped to zero, no IPv6 handle area was introduced, and the amount of introduced IPv4 handle area fell by 94%.
In accordance with TeleGeography’s Submarine Cable Map, the Greenland Connect cable system connects Greenland to Newfoundland, Canada. It’s attainable that the fault on the connection to Denmark could have occurred on the Greenland-to-Iceland phase of the Greenland Join cable system; the Iceland-to-Denmark connection is revamped the DANICE submarine cable.
Very early within the morning of November 12, some subscribers of Verizon’s Fios Web service skilled a disruption to their Web connectivity. A post to the Outages mailing list famous {that a} main multi-state Verizon Fios outage started at 12:28am EST, impacting Virginia, Washington DC, Maryland, and New Jersey, in addition to components of japanese Pennsylvania. Site visitors from AS701, the autonomous system utilized by Verizon for his or her Fios service, dropped by roughly 30% round 00:30 Japanese time (05:30 UTC). At a state stage, site visitors from AS701 dropped between 50-70% in Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and Washington DC.
A subsequent submit on the Outages mailing record acknowledged that the outage was resolved in all places at 3:23am EST (08:23 UTC). Practically six hours after the outage ended, Verizon Support published a post on X acknowledging the problem, stating “A community difficulty early this morning disrupted service for some Verizon Fios clients within the Northeast for a brief time frame. As quickly as the problem was recognized, our engineering groups rapidly restored the service.” Nonetheless, they didn’t present any info on what in the end induced the service disruption.
Along with the outages and disruptions coated above, resilient Internet connectivity meant that two Baltic Sea cable cuts that occurred on November 17 and 18 had minimal impression. Whether or not accidental or sabotage, the safety and resiliency of submarine cable infrastructure continues to be an important topic. The safety and resilience of terrestrial cable infrastructure, in addition to different vital Web infrastructure, should additionally stay prime of thoughts to assist velocity restoration from storms, earthquakes, navy motion, and energy outages.
The Cloudflare Radar group is continually monitoring for Web disruptions, sharing our observations on the Cloudflare Radar Outage Center, through social media, and in posts on blog.cloudflare.com. Observe us on social media at @CloudflareRadar (X), noc.social/@cloudflareradar (Mastodon), and radar.cloudflare.com (Bluesky), or contact us through email.
David Belson
