Post Syndicated from David Belson http://blog.cloudflare.com/author/david-belson/ original https://blog.cloudflare.com/q4-2023-internet-disruption-summary

Cloudflare’s network spans more than 310 cities in over 120 countries, where we interconnect with over 13,000 network providers in order to provide a broad range of services to millions of customers. The breadth of both our network and our customer base provides us with a unique perspective on Internet resilience, enabling us to observe the impact of Internet disruptions.

During previous quarters, we tracked a number of government directed Internet shutdowns in Iraq, intended to prevent cheating on academic exams. We expected to do so again during the fourth quarter, but there turned out to be no need to, as discussed below. While we didn’t see that set of expected shutdowns, we did observe a number of other Internet outages and disruptions due to a number of commonly seen causes, including fiber/cable issues, power outages, extreme weather, infrastructure maintenance, general technical problems, cyberattacks, and unfortunately, military action. As we have noted in the past, this post is intended as a summary overview of observed disruptions, and is not an exhaustive or complete list of issues that have occurred during the quarter.

Government directed

Iraq

In a slight departure from the usual subject of this blog post, this time we lead off with coverage of government directed Internet shutdowns that didn’t happen. Iraq has been a frequent subject of this series of posts, as they have historically implemented daily multi-hour Internet shutdowns during exam periods, intended to prevent cheating. Earlier this year, there was some hope that this practice might be ending, and in our Q2 2023 Internet disruption summary post, we noted “In the weeks prior to the start of this year’s shutdowns, it was reported that the Iraqi Ministry of Communications had announced it had refused a request from the Ministry of Education to impose an Internet shutdown during the exams as part of efforts to prevent cheating. Unfortunately, this refusal was short-lived, with shutdowns ultimately starting two weeks later.” In addition to these second quarter shutdowns, they also occurred during the third quarter across multiple weeks in July, August, and September.

During the fourth quarter, the third round of 12th grade high school final exams was scheduled to begin on November 13 and end on November 21, taking place at 13:00 local time, as shown in the schedule below, which was published on the Iraqi Ministry of Education’s Facebook page.

However, in looking at Internet traffic for Iraq during that period, it appears that the nationwide Internet shutdowns that would have normally taken place did not occur, as the graph shows a very consistent diurnal pattern with no evidence of disruptions to Internet connectivity like we have seen in the past. Additionally, other civil society groups, academic researchers, and Internet analysts that also monitor these shutdowns did not report seeing any related drops in traffic. It is unclear whether a request for shutdowns was submitted by the Ministry of Education and again refused by the Ministry of Communications, or if no request was ever submitted for this round of exams. Regardless, we hope that Iraq continues to keep the Internet connected during future rounds of exams.

Military action

Palestine

On Saturday, October 7, 2023, attacks from the Palestinian group Hamas launched from the Gaza Strip against the south of Israel started a new conflict in the region, with Israel officially declaring the next day that it was at war. This had an almost immediate impact on Internet traffic in both Israel and Palestine, with traffic in the former showing ~170% growth as compared to the prior week, and ~100% growth in the latter as compared to the previous week. These trends are discussed in our October 9 blog post, Internet traffic patterns in Israel and Palestine following the October 2023 attacks.

However, in the hours and days following the initial attacks, a number of Palestinian Internet providers saw traffic fall significantly, with many winding up largely or totally offline, potentially as a result of power outages caused by retaliatory Israeli airstrikes. Impacted networks included AS42314 (fusion), AS203905 (DCC_North_ASN), AS210974 (AjyalFI), AS60268 (DIGITAL-COMMUNICATION-PALESTINE-ASN), AS60353 (DCC_RAFAH_ASN), AS62027 (DCC_Khanyouns_ASN), AS57704 (SPEED-CLICK-LTD), AS199046 (JETNET), and AS213207 (TechHub-HiNet), as shown in the graphs below.

In addition to the outages illustrated above, throughout October, November, and December, Paltel (Palestine Telecommunications Company) posted a number of times on its official X account about disruptions to its landline, mobile, and Internet services, citing causes including fiber damage due to bombardment and fuel depletion. Posts were made on October 27, October 31, November 16, December 4, December 14, December 20, and December 26. The associated outages varied in length, some lasting for hours, while others lasted for multiple days — each outage is shaded in the graphs below, which show Paltel traffic within four Palestinian governorates in the Gaza Strip region.

Fiber/cable trouble

Namibia

On November 13, Telecom Namibia (AS36996) reported that it was experiencing interruptions to its fixed voice and data services in several areas, resulting from cable theft. The impact of these interruptions is shown in the figure below, with Internet traffic disrupted between 13:45 local time (11:45 UTC) on November 13 and 08:30 local time (06:30 UTC) on November 14. The disruption to connectivity due to cable theft was not an isolated incident, as the provider posted several additional notices on its social media accounts in November and December about similar occurrences.

Cuba

A day later, on November 14, ETECSA (AS27725) posted a notice about a terrestrial fiber cut that disrupted Internet services. As the state-owned telecommunications provider in Cuba, the cut impacted Internet traffic nationwide, as well as at a network level, as seen in the graphs below. The disruption was relatively short-lived, occurring between 06:30 – 08:15 local time (11:30 – 13:15 UTC), with a follow-up post announcing the re-establishment of Internet service.

Chad

On December 7 & 8, a near-complete outage observed in Chad was reportedly due to fiber optic cable cuts in neighboring countries. A published article cited SudaChad as claiming that the outage seen in the graphs below was due to an issue with CAMTEL, a Cameroonian partner. It also cites Moov Africa’s (formerly known as Millicom Chad) apology to customers, which points at “the fiber-optic cut in Cameroon and Sudan” as the root cause. Since simultaneous cuts in fiber optic cables in Chad’s two neighboring countries would certainly be an unusual occurrence, it isn’t clear if such an event happened, though routing data for SudaChad shows that the network’s two upstream providers are AS15706 (Sudatel) in Sudan and AS15964 (CAMNET) in Cameroon. The three providers are also partners on the WE-AFRICA-NA terrestrial cable, which stretches from Port-Sudan on the Red Sea in Sudan to Kribi on the Atlantic Ocean in Cameroon via Chad, but it isn’t known whether that cable system was involved in this outage.

The disruption lasted approximately fourteen hours, from 20:00 local time on December 7 until 10:15 local time on December 8 (19:00 UTC on December 7 until 09:15 UTC on December 8), with the impact visible country-wide, as well as at SudaChad and several downstream network providers.

Cyberattacks

Ukraine

Ukrainian Internet provider Kyivstar announced on the morning of December 12 that they were the “target of a powerful hacker attack”. They noted that the attack caused a “technical failure” that resulted in mobile communication and Internet access becoming temporarily unavailable. Although Kyivstar has been targeted by around 500 cyberattacks since Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, this was reportedly the largest attack to date. A subsequent report referenced an interview with Illia Vitiuk, the head of the cybersecurity department at Ukraine’s security service (SBU), in which he claimed that “the hackers attempted to penetrate Kyivstar in March 2023 or earlier, managed to get into the system at least as early as May, and likely gained full access to the network in November.”

Recovery took several days, with Kyivstar posting on December 15 that “the Internet is everywhere” but warning that connection speeds might be slightly reduced. These posts align with the traffic disruption shown in the figure below, which lasted from 06:30 local time (04:30 UTC) on December 12 until 14:00 local time (12:00 UTC) on December 15.

Power outages

Brunei

A major power outage in Brunei on October 17 disrupted key services including mobile and fixed Internet connectivity. Starting around 11:30 local time (03:30 UTC), traffic was disrupted for approximately 13 hours, recovering to expected levels around just after midnight local time on October 18 (16:45 UTC). Two Unified National Networks autonomous systems (AS10094 and AS131467) saw lower traffic volumes during the power outage.

Kenya

A widespread power outage in Kenya on November 11 disrupted Internet connectivity across the county for approximately seven hours. An X post from Kenya Power at 20:30 local time (17:30 UTC) reported a partial power outage, stating “We have lost power supply to parts of the country. Our engineers are working to restore supply to the affected areas.” Kenya Power kept customers informed of progress, posting updates at 22:00, 23:57, and the morning of November 12, with the final update reporting “We have successfully restored normal power supply in all the areas that were affected by the partial outage.”

Curaçao

On November 14, a Facebook post from Aqualectra, the water and power company in Curaçao, stated in part, “Around 14:00 this afternoon, a blackout occurred. Preliminary investigation indicates that one of the main cables responsible for transporting electricity between the substations at Nijlweg and Weis experienced a short circuit. It is important to emphasize that this is not due to a lack of production capacity.” The power outage resulted in a near complete loss of traffic at Flow Curaçao (AS52233), with significant disruptions also visible at United Telecommunication Services (AS11081) and at a country level, as seen in the graphs below. The disruption lasted eight hours, from 14:00 until 22:00 local time (18:00 UTC on November 14 until 02:00 UTC on November 15).

Sri Lanka

After stabilizing its electrical infrastructure in the wake of 2022’s problems with its electrical power grid, the failure of a main transmission line caused an island-wide power outage in Sri Lanka on December 9, in turn disrupting Internet connectivity. Traffic from the island nation initially dropped by around 50% starting around 16:45 local time (11:15 UTC). Repairs took several hours, with the country’s Internet traffic returning to expected levels around 01:00 local time on December 10 (19:30 UTC).

Panama

On the morning of December 24, Panamanian electric distribution company ENSA initially reported an event that affected electrical services to their customers. A subsequent report posted just 30 minutes later provided additional details, pointing to an incident in the “National Interconnected System” that affected the electrical supply in a number of areas, but within an hour, it had spread nationally. Although the initial regional power issues did not have a noticeable impact on Panama’s Internet traffic, the loss of traffic in the graph below aligns with the national growth of the power outage, occurring at 11:45 local time (16:45 UTC). Traffic returned to expected levels at around 15:00 local time (20:00 UTC), aligning with an X post from ENSA stating that “At 3:12pm the supply of electrical energy to all our clients has been normalized after an event at the Transmission level originating in the Panama 1 Substation of ETESA.”

Weather

Ukraine

Internet disruptions in Ukraine due to the conflict there have been covered in multiple quarterly Internet disruption summary blog posts over the last two years. However, in November, connectivity in multiple areas of the country was disrupted by power outages caused by a major winter storm. Snow and high winds knocked out power to hundreds of towns and villages, damaging electrical power infrastructure. The impact is visible in the graphs below as a drop in traffic occurring around 01:00 local time on November 27 (23:00 UTC on November 26), observed in regions including Donetsk, Kherson Oblast, and Luhansk. Traffic appeared to return to expected levels early in the morning local time on November 28.

Mexico

On October 25, Hurricane Otis made landfall near Acapulco, a popular tourist destination in Mexico. In addition to catastrophic structural damage, it was reported that “more than 10,000 utility poles were destroyed, knocking out power and internet/communications across the region, while numerous transmission lines, electrical substations, and a power plant were also heavily damaged.” This damage to electrical and communications infrastructure in the area resulted in significant disruption to Internet connectivity. As shown in the graph below, Internet traffic from Acapulco dropped by around 80% as Otis made landfall. Traffic started to show some growth in early November, but peak volumes remained relatively consistent, and well below pre-hurricane levels, through the end of the year. (Several large spikes are visible on December 26 & 30, but it isn’t clear what those are associated with.) Although Acapulco’s tourism industry experienced a notable recovery heading into the end of the year, it appears that infrastructure recovery has not been quite as swift.

Fire

Hawaii

Last quarter, we reported on the impact of wildfires that started on August 7 in Hawaii, including killing nearly 100 people, as well as destroying homes, businesses, and infrastructure, causing power outages and disrupting Internet connectivity. One of the most impacted areas was the town of Lahaina, where Internet connectivity remained sparse for weeks after the fires began. Repair and restoration efforts continued throughout the fourth quarter, with traffic clearly growing throughout October, with peak levels in November and December approaching pre-fire levels.

Maintenance

Yemen

Two maintenance-related Internet disruptions impacted Internet connectivity in Yemen in the fourth quarter. The first lasted over four hours during the morning of November 10, from 03:10 – 07:45 local time (00:10 – 04:45 UTC), and followed two other disruptions the prior day. The impact was visible at a country level, as well as at a network level on PTC-YemenNet (AS30873).

An Associated Press article noted that in a statement to the state news agency, Yemen’s Public Telecom Corp. (PTC-YemenNet) blamed the outage on maintenance, apparently of the FALCON submarine cable. The article also cited a statement from GCX, the operator of the FALCON cable, regarding scheduled maintenance to the cable system that had been in planning for the previous three months.

The second maintenance-related disruption occurred on December 15 just before 23:00 local time (20:00 UTC). An X post from Mosfer Alnomeir, the Minister of Telecommunication and Information Technology in Yemen, explained what happened: “We note that half an hour ago there was an interruption in the Internet service that lasted approximately 30 minutes. This is while engineers carry out emergency replacement and upgrade work on some service equipment. Service was restored immediately. On behalf of the team, I say thank you for your understanding.” Once again, the impact was visible at both a country and network level.

Technical problems

Australia

“Changes to routing information” after a “routine software upgrade” were reportedly responsible for a multi-hour Internet outage at Australian telecommunications provider Optus (AS4804) on November 8 local time. Connectivity began to drop just after 04:00 Sydney time, with the outage lasting from 04:30 – 10:00 Sydney time (17:30 – 23:00 UTC on November 7). Traffic didn’t fully recover to expected levels until around 23:00 Sydney time (12:00 UTC).

The network issue impacted more than 10 million customers, as well as hospitals and payment and transport systems, and drew comparisons to July 2023’s outage at Canadian provider Rogers Communications. Optus submitted a report to the Australian Senate Standing Committee on Environment and Communications that detailed the cause of the outage, noting “It is now understood that the outage occurred due to approximately 90 PE routers automatically self-isolating in order to protect themselves from an overload of IP routing information. … This unexpected overload of IP routing information occurred after a software upgrade at one of the Singtel internet exchanges (known as STiX) in North America, one of Optus’ international networks. During the upgrade, the Optus network received changes in routing information from an alternate Singtel peering router. These routing changes were propagated through multiple layers of our IP Core network. As a result, at around 4:05am (AEDT), the pre-set safety limits on a significant number of Optus network routers were exceeded.” The report also detailed the recovery efforts and timelines for consumer Internet, DNS, and mobile services.

Armenia

Failure of international links caused a brief Internet disruption at Telecom Armenia (AS12297) on November 11, similar to a disruption that occurred almost exactly a year earlier. As shown in the graph below, the disruption began just around 15:15 local time (11:15 UTC), with short periods where traffic dropped to zero. Traffic recovered to expected levels by 21:00 local time (17:00 UTC). As one of the largest telecommunications providers in the country, the service disruption was visible at a country level as well.

United Kingdom

A sizable drop in traffic was observed between 15:00 and 21:30 local time (15:00 – 21:30 UTC) on mobile and broadband Internet provider Three UK (AS206067) on December 1, as seen in the graph below. Although the provider acknowledged that customers were experiencing issues and provided several updates (1, 2, 3, 4) on service restoration over the next day, it never disclosed any additional information on the cause of the disruption. However, a published report stated that Three UK blamed technical issues at one of its data centers as the cause of the problem, which impacted more than 20,000 users.

Egypt

On December 5, Telecom Egypt (AS8452) posted on X that a technical malfunction affecting one of their main network devices was responsible for an Internet disruption that occurred on their network, which also impacted connectivity on several other network providers, including LINKdotNET (AS24863), Vodadfone Egypt (AS24835), and Etisalat (AS36992), as well as traffic at a national level, as seen in the graphs below. Although one news report claimed that the disruption, which occurred between 14:15 – 00:00 local time (12:15 – 22:00 UTC), was due to damage to the FLAG and SeaMeWe-4 submarine cables, a subsequent post from Telecom Egypt about service restoration dispelled that claim, noting “The company also confirms that there is no truth to what has been circulated on some social media sites about the presence of a break in one of the submarine cables.”

Tunisia

A reported DNS server outage (albeit unconfirmed) at Tunisian Internet provider Topnet (AS37705) caused a brief Internet disruption for the provider’s customers on December 17, also impacting traffic volumes at a national level. The incident lasted less than two hours, from 13:00 – 14:45 local time (12:00 – 13:45 UTC).

Guinea

An unspecified incident on the Orange Guinée (AS37461) network impacted Internet connectivity, as well as telephone calls and text messages during the morning of December 22. The graph below shows a near-complete outage on the network between 09:15 – 11:30 local time (09:15 – 11:30 UTC). The provider posted a subsequent update regarding the restoration of calls, text messages, and Internet connectivity.

Conclusion

Within the Cloudflare Radar 2023 Year in Review, we highlighted over 180 major Internet disruptions that were observed year-to-date through the end of November, though the actual number was likely closer to 200 by the end of the year. While that may seem like a lot, it is worth nothing that the actual number is even higher, as these posts are not exhaustive in their coverage of such events. For example, while we covered the Internet shutdown in Manipur, India that took place across multiple months in 2023, internetshutdowns.in shows that over 90 more smaller localized shutdowns were put into place across the country.

In addition, 2024 is shaping up to be an important year for elections, with voting taking place in more than 50 countries around the world. Unfortunately, some countries have taken to implementing Internet shutdowns or otherwise disrupting Internet connectivity during elections. The Freedom Online Coalition’s Joint Statement on Internet Shutdowns and Elections details the detrimental effects of such actions. The Cloudflare Radar team will be monitoring for election-related Internet shutdowns, sharing our observations on the Cloudflare Radar Outage Center, via social media, and in posts on blog.cloudflare.com.

Follow us on social media at @CloudflareRadar (X), cloudflare.social/@radar (Mastodon), and radar.cloudflare.com (Bluesky), or contact us via email.

Post Syndicated from David Belson original http://blog.cloudflare.com/q2-2023-internet-disruption-summary/

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Cloudflare operates in more than 300 cities in over 100 countries, where we interconnect with over 12,000 network providers in order to provide a broad range of services to millions of customers. The breadth of both our network and our customer base provides us with a unique perspective on Internet resilience, enabling us to observe the impact of Internet disruptions.

The second quarter of 2023 was a particularly busy one for Internet disruptions, and especially for government-directed Internet shutdowns. During the quarter, we observed many brief disruptions, but also quite a few long-lived ones. In addition to the government-directed Internet shutdowns, we also observed partial or complete outages due to severe weather, cable damage, power outages, general or unspecified technical problems, cyberattacks, military action, and infrastructure maintenance.

As we have noted in the past, this post is intended as a summary overview of observed disruptions, and is not an exhaustive or complete list of issues that have occurred during the quarter.

Government directed

Late spring often marks the start of a so-called “exam season” in several Middle Eastern and African countries, where students sit for a series of secondary school exams. In an attempt to prevent cheating on these exams, governments in the countries have taken to implementing wide-scale Internet shutdowns covering time periods just before and during the exams. We have covered these shutdowns in the past, including Sudan and Syria in 2021 and Syria, Sudan, and Algeria in 2022. This year, we saw governments in Iraq, Algeria, and Syria taking such actions.

Iraq

In the weeks prior to the start of this year’s shutdowns, it was reported that the Iraqi Ministry of Communications had announced it had refused a request from the Ministry of Education to impose an Internet shutdown during the exams as part of efforts to prevent cheating. Unfortunately, this refusal was short-lived, with shutdowns ultimately starting two weeks later.

In Iraq, two sets of shutdowns were observed: one impacted networks nationwide, except for the Kurdistan Region, while the other impacted networks within the Kurdistan Region. The former set of shutdowns were related to 9th and 12th grade exams, and were scheduled to occur from June 1 through July 15, between 04:00 and 08:00 local time (01:00 – 05:00 UTC). The graphs below show that during June, shutdowns took place on June 1, 4, 6, 8, 11, 13, 15, 17, 21, 22, 24, 25, and 26, resulting in significant disruptions to Internet connectivity. The shutdowns were implemented across a number of network providers, including AS203214 (HulumTele), AS59588 (Zain), AS199739 (Earthlink), AS203735 (Net Tech), AS51684 (Asiacell), and AS58322 (Halasat). The orange-highlighted areas in the graphs below show traffic on each network provider dropping to zero during the shutdowns.

As noted above, exam-related Internet shutdowns were also implemented in the Kurdistan region of Iraq. One report quoted the Minister of Education of the Kurdistan Regional Government as stating "The Internet will be turned off as needed during exams, but just like in previous years, the period of the Internet shutdown will not be lengthy, but rather short.” To that end, the observed shutdowns generally lasted about two hours, occurring between 06:30 and 08:30 local time (03:30 – 05:30 UTC) on June 3, 6, 10, 13, 17, and 24. The graphs below show the impact across three network providers in the region: AS21277 (Newroz Telecom), AS48492 (IQ Online), and AS59625 (KorekTel).

Additional details about both sets of Internet shutdowns in Iraq can be found in our June 13 blog post: Exam-related Internet shutdowns in Iraq and Algeria put connectivity to the test.

Algeria

2023 marks the sixth year that Algeria has disrupted Internet connectivity to prevent cheating during nationwide exams. In 2022, we noted that “it appears that the Algerian government has shifted to a content blocking-based approach, instead of a wide-scale Internet shutdown.” It appears that the same approach was taken this year, as we again observed two nominal drops in traffic during each of the exam days, rather than a complete loss of traffic. These traffic shifts were observed on mobile network providers AS33779 (Ooredoo/Wataniya), AS327931 (Djezzy/Optimum), and AS327712 (Mobilis/Telecom Algeria). The first disruption takes place between 08:00 – 12:00 local time (07:00 – 11:00 UTC), with the second occurring between 14:00 – 17:00 local time (13:00 – 16:00 UTC).

Syria

After implementing four exam-related Internet shutdowns in 2022, this year saw just two. On June 25 and 26, Internet shutdowns took place between 05:00 – 08:30 local time (02:00 – 05:30 UTC). Syrian Telecom (AS29256), the government-affiliated telecommunications company, informed subscribers in a Facebook post that the Internet would be cut off at the request of the Ministry of Education.

Senegal

In Senegal, violent protests over the sentencing of opposition leader Ousmane Sonko to jail led the government to restrict access to platforms including WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, Telegram, Signal, and YouTube. On June 4, the Senegal Ministry of Communication issued a statement temporarily suspending mobile Internet access, with a followup statement on June 6 ending the suspension. These disruptions to mobile Internet access were visible on two network providers within the country: AS37196 (Sudatel Senegal) and AS37649 (Tigo/Free).

As shown in the graphs below, the shutdowns on Sudatel Senegal occurred from 15:00 local time on June 3 through 01:00 local time on June 5, and then again from 13:00 local time on June 5 until 01:00 local time on June 6. The three shutdowns seen on Tigo/Free took place between 15:30 – 19:00 local time on June 3, from 13:45 local time on June 4 until 02:05 local time on June 5, and from 13:05 local time on June 5 through 01:00 local time on June 6. (Senegal is UTC+0, so the local times are the same as UTC.)

Mauritania

In Mauritania, authorities cut off mobile Internet services after protests over the death of a young man in police custody. The shutdown began at 23:00 local time on May 30, and lasted six days, with connectivity returning at 23:00 local time on June 6. (Mauritania is UTC+0, so the local times are the same as UTC.) The graphs below show a near complete loss of Internet traffic during that period from AS37541 (Chinguitel) and AS37508 (Mattel), two mobile network providers within the country.

Pakistan

On May 9, Imran Khan, former Prime Minister of Pakistan was arrested on corruption charges. Following the arrest, violent protests erupted in several cities, leading the government of Pakistan to order the shutdown of mobile Internet services, as well as the blocking of several social media platforms. The figures below show the impact of the ordered shutdown to traffic on four mobile network providers within the country: AS24499 (Telenor Pakistan), AS59257 (China Mobile Pak), AS45669 (Mobilink/Jazz), and AS56167 (Ufone/PTML). The ordered shutdown caused a complete loss of Internet traffic from these networks that started at 22:00 local time (17:00 UTC) on May 9 at Telenor and China Mobile Pakistan, 18:00 local time (13:00 UTC) on Mobilink/Jazz, and 01:00 local time on May 10 (20:00 UTC on May 9) at Ufone/PTML. Traffic was restored at 22:00 local time (17:00 UTC) on May 12.

Looking at Cloudflare Radar’s recently launched Internet Quality page for Pakistan during the duration of the shutdown, we observed that median latency within Pakistan dropped slightly after mobile networks were shut down, shown in the graph below. Prior to the shutdown, median latency (as observed to Cloudflare and a set of other providers) was in the 90-100ms range, while afterward, it averaged closer to 75ms. This may be a result of users shifting to lower latency fixed broadband connections – several fixed broadband providers in the country experienced increased traffic volumes while the mobile networks were unavailable.

Additional details about the mobile network shutdowns, content blocking, and the impact at an administrative unit and city level can be found in our May 12 blog post Cloudflare’s view of Internet disruptions in Pakistan.

India

Internet shutdowns are unfortunately frequent in India, with digital rights organization Access Now reporting at least 84 shutdowns within the country in 2022. The shutdowns are generally implemented at a more local level, and often last for a significant amount of time. One such shutdown took place in the northeastern Indian state of Manipur starting on May 3 after the escalation of ethnic conflict, and was reportedly intended to “thwart the design and activities of anti-national and anti-social elements… by stopping the spread of disinformation and false rumours'' and the likelihood of “serious disturbances to the entire peaceful coexistence of the communities and maintenance of public order”. Mobile data services were initially suspended for a five-day period, with the suspension continually extended through additional templated orders issued every five days.

The graphs below show the impact of the ordered shutdown to traffic from two major network providers in Manipur. Traffic from both AS45609 (Airtel) and AS9829 (BSNL) fell significantly around 18:00 local time (12:30 UTC) on May 4. Traffic on Airtel has remained low, and continued to drop further through the end of June. Traffic on BSNL showed slight signs of recovery starting in early June, but remains extremely low.

The shutdown order remains in place as of the time of this writing (late July).

Severe weather

Guam

On May 24, “Super Typhoon” Mawar wreaked havoc on the US territory of Guam, causing widespread physical damage after it made landfall, taking down trees, buildings, power lines, and communications infrastructure across the island. One result of this damage was a significant disruption to Internet connectivity, as shown in the country-level graph below. Restoration efforts started almost immediately, with Guam Power Authority, Docomo Pacific, and GTA Teleguam all posting regular status updates on their websites and/or social media accounts.

Among the two Internet providers, GTA Teleguam (AS9246) was largely able to complete service restoration in June, with traffic returning to pre-storm levels around June 17, as seen in the graph below. In fact, in a June 20 Facebook post they noted that “As of today, a majority of our wireless network cell sites are operational.” However, recovery at Docomo Pacific (AS3605) is taking significantly longer. The graph below shows that as of the end of June, traffic remained significantly below pre-storm levels.

Cable damage

Bolivia

On June 19, COTAS, a Bolivian telecommunications company, posted an update on their Facebook page that alerted users that a fiber optic cable had been cut in the town of Pongo. As seen in the graphs below, this cut significantly disrupted Internet connectivity across COTAS and two other network providers in the country: AS25620 (COTAS), AS27839 (Comteco), and AS52495 (Cotel) between 13:00 – 18:00 local time (17:00 –  22:00 UTC).

The Gambia

Gamtel, the state telecommunications company in The Gambia, notified subscribers via a Twitter post on June 7 of a localized fiber cut, and then of additional cable cuts on June 8. These fiber cuts disrupted Internet connectivity on AS25250 (Gamtel) between 14:00 local time on June 7 and 00:00 local time on June 9, with traffic volumes down as much as 80% as compared to the previous period. (The Gambia is UTC+0, so the local times are the same as UTC.)

Philippines

An advisory posted on Twitter by Philippines telecommunications provider PLDT at 18:43 local time (10:43 UTC) on June 5 stated “One of our submarine cable partners confirms a loss in some of its internet bandwidth capacity, and thus causing slower Internet browsing. We are working with our partners to provide alternate capacity that would restore the browsing experience in the next few hours.” The traffic graph below shows a minor disruption to Internet traffic for AS9299 (PLDT) starting around 14:00 local time (06:00 UTC), and the “slower Internet browsing” noted by PLDT is evident in the Internet quality graphs below, with increased latency and decreased bandwidth evident around that same time. PLDT stated in a subsequent tweet that as of 06:22 local time on June 6 (22:22 UTC on June 5), “Our submarine cable partner confirms supplementing additional capacity, restoring browser experience.”

Power outages

Curaçao

Aqualectra is the primary utility company in Curaçao, providing water and power services. On June 8, they posted a series of alerts to their Facebook page (1, 2, 3, 4) regarding a power outage impacting “all neighborhoods”, caused by a malfunction in one of the main power cables connected to the substation at Parera. This loss of power impacted Internet connectivity on the island, with a significant loss of traffic observed at a country level, as seen in the graph below, as well as across several Internet service providers, including AS11081 (UTS), AS52233 (Columbus Communications), and AS27660 (Curaçao Telecom). A followup Facebook post dated 01:25 local time on June 9 (05:25 UTC) confirmed the restoration of power to all neighborhoods.

Portugal

A power outage at an Equinix data center in Prior Velho (near Lisbon) on the afternoon of June 6 affected local utilities, banking services, and court networks, according to published reports (1, 2). Portuguese Internet service provider MEO was also impacted by the power outage, which caused a drop in traffic for AS3243 (MEO-RESIDENCIAL) and AS15525 (MEO-EMPRESAS), seen in the graphs below. The disruptions caused by the power outage also impacted connectivity quality within Portugal, as the Radar Internet quality graphs below highlight – a concurrent drop in bandwidth and increase in latency is visible, indicating that end users likely experienced poorer performance during that period of time.

Botswana

A countrywide power outage in Botswana on May 19 caused an Internet disruption that lasted about 90 minutes, from 10:45 until 12:15 local time (08:45 – 10:15 UTC), visible in the graph below. A tweet from Botswana Power Corporation provided public notice of the incident, but did not include a root cause.

Barbados

On April 4, The Barbados Light & Power Company tweeted an “Outage Notice”, stating “We are aware that our customers across the island are currently without electricity.” Posted at 11:46 local time (15:46 UTC), the notice comes shortly after a significant drop in traffic was observed country-wide, indicating that the power outage also impacted Internet connectivity across the country. After posting several additional updates throughout the day, a final update posted at 18:00 local time (22:00 UTC) indicated that power had been restored to 100% of impacted customers. The graph below shows that traffic took several additional hours to return to normal levels. (Note that the orange highlighting in the graph represents the duration of the disruption, and the red shading is related to an internal data collection issue.)

Technical problems

Namibia

A seven-hour Internet disruption observed in Namibia on June 15 and 16 was caused by unspecified “technical challenges” faced by Telecom Namibia. According to a tweet from the provider, “Telecom Namibia experienced technical challenges on its fixed and mobile data services on Thursday leading to intermittent Internet connectivity.” The impact of these challenges is visible in both the country- and network-level traffic graphs below.

Solomon Islands

Unspecified “technical reasons” also disrupted mobile Internet connectivity for Our Telekom customers in the Solomon Islands on April 26 and 27. An April 26 Facebook post from Our Telekom simply stated “Our mobile data network is currently down due to technical reasons.” The graphs below show a significant drop in traffic for AS45891 (Our Telekom/SBT) between 06:30 local time on April 27 (19:30 UTC on April 26) and 17:00 local time on April 27 (06:00 UTC). The loss of mobile traffic from Our Telekom also impacted traffic at a country level, as the graph shows a similar disruption for the Solomon Islands.

SpaceX Starlink

With an increasingly global service footprint, disruptions observed on SpaceX Starlink potentially impact users across multiple countries around the world. Just before midnight UTC on April 7, Internet traffic seen from AS14593 (SpaceX-Starlink) began to decline significantly. The disruption was short-lived, with traffic returning to expected levels within two hours. According to a Twitter post from Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX, the problem was “Caused by expired ground station cert” (an expired digital certificate associated with one or more Starlink ground stations, likely preventing communication between the satellite constellation and the ground station(s)).

Madagascar

In Madagascar, a “problem with the backbone”, reported by Telma Madagascar, caused a loss of as much as two-thirds of Internet traffic between 09:15 – 14:00 local time (06:15 – 11:00 UTC) on April 7. The graphs below show that the backbone issue disrupted traffic at a national level, as well as for AS37054 (Telma Madagascar).

United Kingdom

On April 4, UK Internet provider Virgin Media suffered multiple service disruptions that impacted Internet connectivity for broadband customers. The first outage started just before 01:00 local time (midnight UTC)l, lasting until approximately 09:00 local time (08:00 UTC). The second outage started around 16:00 local time (15:00 UTC), with traffic volumes going up and down over the next several hours before appearing to stabilize around 21:30 local time (20:30 UTC).

Virgin Media’s Twitter account acknowledged the early morning disruption several hours after it began, posting “We’re aware of an issue that is affecting broadband services for Virgin Media customers as well as our contact centres. Our teams are currently working to identify and fix the problem as quickly as possible and we apologise to those customers affected.” A subsequent post after service restoration noted “We’ve restored broadband services for customers but are closely monitoring the situation as our engineers continue to investigate. We apologise for any inconvenience caused.”

However, the second disruption was acknowledged on Virgin Media’s Twitter account much more rapidly, with a post at 16:25 UTC stating “Unfortunately we have seen a repeat of an earlier issue which is causing intermittent broadband connectivity problems for some Virgin Media customers. We apologise again to those impacted, our teams are continuing to work flat out to find the root cause of the problem and fix it.”

Although no additional details have been shared via social media by Virgin Media about the outages or their resolution, some additional information was shared via Twitter by an apparent customer, who posted “Virgin Media engineers re-seated fibre cards and reset hub equipment to restore service. TTL was extended as a workaround to maintain stability whilst a permanent fix is implemented.”

Additional details about the Virgin Media outage can be found in our April 4 blog post: Cloudflare’s view of the Virgin Media outage in the UK.

Cyberattacks

Ukraine

As we have covered in past blog posts, the physical war between Russia and Ukraine also has a very active online component, with traffic shifts, cyberattacks, and traffic rerouting all observed since the conflict began in February 2022. In early May 2022, we observed traffic from several Ukrainian network providers being rerouted through AS201776 (Miranda Media), a Crimean-based, Russian-controlled network operator. (This rerouting is discussed in more detail in two blog posts: Tracking shifts in Internet connectivity in Kherson, Ukraine and One year of war in Ukraine: Internet trends, attacks, and resilience.)

A little more than a year later, on May 26, we observed an Internet outage at Miranda Media. Traffic started to fall around 16:30 local time (13:30 UTC), dropping to zero around 18:15 local time (15:15 UTC). The outage disrupted connectivity on the Crimean Peninsula and parts of occupied Ukraine and lasted until approximately 06:00 local time on May 27 (03:00 UTC). Published reports (1,2) suggest that the outage was due to a cyberattack targeting Miranda Media, reportedly carried out by Ukrainian hacktivists.

Russia

Russian satellite provider Dozor Teleport, whose customers include Russia’s Ministry of Defense, ships of the Northern Fleet, Russian energy firm Gazprom, remote oil fields, the Bilibino nuclear power plant, the Federal Security Service (FSB), Rosatom, and other organizations, experienced a multi-hour outage on June 29. The outage, which occurred between 01:30 – 17:30 UTC, was reportedly the result of a cyberattack that at least two groups claimed responsibility for.

Military action

Chad

Multiple Internet disruptions occurred in Chad on April 23 and 24, impacting several Internet providers, and were ultimately visible at a country level as well. As seen in the graphs below, the outages occurred from 04:30 – 06:00 local time (03:30 – 05:00 UTC) and 15:00 – 20:00 local time (14:00 – 19:00 UTC) on April 23, and 04:00 – 08:30 local time (03:00 – 07:30 UTC) on April 24. The impacted network providers in Chad included AS327802 (Millicom Chad), AS327756 (Airtel Chad), AS328594 (Sudat Chad), and AS327975 (ILNET-TELECOM). The outages were reportedly caused by damage to fiber infrastructure that links Chad with neighboring Cameroon and Sudan, with the latter experiencing Internet service disruptions amid clashes between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

Sudan

As noted above, military action in Sudan disrupted Internet connectivity in Chad in April. Starting in mid-April, multiple Internet outages were observed at major Sudanese Internet providers, three of which are shown in the graphs below. The fighting in the country has led to fuel shortages and power cuts, ultimately disrupting Internet connectivity.

AS15706 (Sudatel) experienced complete Internet outages from 03:00 on April 23 to 17:00 on April 24 local time (01:00 on April 23 to 15:00 on April 24 UTC) and again from 03:00 on April 25 until 01:00 on April 28 local time (01:00 on April 25 to 23:00 on April 27 UTC). Internet connectivity on AS36972 (MTN) was disrupted between 03:00 and 12:00 local time on April 16 (01:00 – 10:00 UTC) and again between 20:00 on April 27 until 02:00 on April 29 (18:00 on April 27 to 00:00 on April 29). After a nominal multi-day recovery, a long-term near complete outage started on May 5, lasting for multiple weeks. Similar to MTN, multiple extended outages were also observed on AS33788 (Kanar Telecommunication). After seeing a significant drop in traffic midday on April 19, a near complete outage is visible between 12:00 on April 21 and 01:00 on April 29 (10:00 on April 21 to 23:00 on April 28 UTC), with a very brief minor recovery late in the day on April 24. A longer duration outage began around 00:00 local time on May 11 (22:00 on May 10 UTC), also lasting for multiple weeks.

Additional details about the Internet disruptions in Sudan can be found in our May 2 blog post: Effects of the conflict in Sudan on Internet patterns.

Maintenance

Togo, Republic of Congo (Brazzaville), Burkina Faso

Repair work on the West Africa Cable System (WACS) submarine cable disrupted Internet connectivity across multiple countries, including Togo, Republic of Congo (Brazzaville), and Burkina Faso on April 6. According to the Google translation of a Facebook post from Canalbox Congo, the repair work was likely to cause “very strong disruptions on Internet connections with the risk of a total outage”. (Canalbox (GVA) is an African telecommunications operator that provides services across multiple countries in Africa.)

The graph below for AS36924 (GVA-Canalbox) shows three overlapping outage annotations, with each related to a disruption observed on that autonomous system (network) in one of the impacted countries. In the Republic of Congo (Brazzaville), a significant traffic disruption is visible between 16:15 – 23:15 local time (15:15 – 22:15 UTC). In Burkina Faso, the disruption happened earlier and was less severe, taking place between 09:15 – 18:00 local time (09:15 – 18:00 UTC), with a similar impact in Togo, where traffic was disrupted between 11:00 – 23:15 local time (11:00 – 23:15 UTC).

Conclusion

Because of how tightly interwoven the Internet has become with commerce, financial services, and everyday life around the world, any disruption to Internet connectivity ultimately carries an economic impact. The providers impacted by disruptions caused by unexpected or unavoidable events such as cable cuts or severe weather generally try to minimize the scope and duration of such disruptions, ultimately limiting the economic impact. However, in the case of government-directed Internet shutdowns, the damage to the economy is ultimately self-inflicted. The Internet Society’s new Net Loss Calculator now provides a way to quantify this damage, enabling the public, advocacy groups, and governments themselves to understand the potential cost of an Internet shutdown from gross domestic product (GDP), foreign direct investment (FDI), and unemployment perspectives.

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