This weekly feature from S&P Global Market Intelligence, in collaboration with internet-service monitoring company ThousandEyes, aims to give remote workers insights into internet service disruptions.
The volume of global internet outages went up to 346 in the week of Aug. 21, a 9% increase from 317 in the previous week, according to data from ThousandEyes, a network-monitoring service owned by Cisco Systems Inc.
This is the third consecutive weekly increase in internet outages globally, beginning with the week of Aug. 7.
U.S. disruptions also increased, to 150 from 102 in the prior week, or a 47% week-over-week rise. The U.S. total comprised 43% of the global outages for the Aug. 21 week, compared to 32% in the prior week.
ThousandEyes detected two notable interruptions in the previous week, both occurring Aug. 24.
U.S.-based multinational transit provider Cogent Communications Holdings Inc. experienced a disruption affecting multiple downstream providers and customers in Hong Kong, as well as the U.S., the U.K. and 17 other countries. The 59-minute outage apparently coincided with a planned maintenance window involving code upgrades on Cogent's infrastructure in the Los Angeles area. The interruption was cleared at about 6:35 a.m. ET and affected nodes in Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Jose and Fullerton, Calif.; Las Vegas; Atlanta; Houston and El Paso, Texas; Phoenix; and Hong Kong.
Earlier in the day, Boulder, Colo.-based Tier 1 carrier Zayo Group LLC dealt with an outage that impacted some customers and partners in multiple locations, including the U.S., Canada, Singapore, India and Hong Kong. The outage, which appeared to center on nodes in Seattle, Los Angeles, San Diego and Phoenix, lasted about 18 minutes and was cleared at about 3:20 a.m. ET.
ThousandEyes observed four collaboration-app disruptions in the Aug. 21 week, the same number as in the prior week. Two of these outages occurred in the U.S.
Business-hours outages accounted for 40% of the global total in the Aug. 21 week, up 2 percentage points from prior-week figures. The same metric in the U.S. registered a week-over-week rise of 12 percentage points to 41%. Business-hour disruptions in Europe, the Middle East and Africa fell 6 percentage points to 43%, while such outages in the Asia-Pacific region dipped 2 percentage points to 38%.
