Widespread internet outages hit northeast U.S.

Users across the northeast U.S. reported widespread internet outages Tuesday

Internet Outage-East Coast (Copyright 2019 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)

Internet users across the northeast U.S. reported widespread outages Tuesday.

Verizon reported a cut fiber in Brooklyn via Twitter although it’s not clear if that issue is responsible for the entire outage. The telecom giant didn't have any estimate when the problem spot would be fixed.

Neither Verizon nor Comcast, another major internet service provider, immediately responded to requests for comment.

People posting on Twitter reported having issues connecting with various online services in a geographic area stretching from Washington to Boston. That densely populated region includes key U.S. government services as well as major financial companies such as Fidelity Investments.

The outage is affecting major internet and cloud providers as well as major sites such as Google and Facebook.

Amazon whose web services division powers a wide ranges of online services, indicated its network isn't the cause of the problem.

“We are investigating connectivity issues with an internet provider, mainly affecting the East Coast of the United States, outside of the (Amazon Web Services) Network," the company wrote in a Tuesday morning post. “We are investigating the issue with the external provider.”

The East Coast outages began at 11:25 a.m. local time and recovery began at 12:37 p.m, according to Doug Madory, director of Internet Analysis at Kentic, a network monitoring company. He reported a 12% drop in traffic volume to Verizon.

Madory said he did not yet know if other carriers were impacted.

Disruptions to internet services are always a hassle, but have become even more excruciating at a time that the pandemic is forcing millions of people to work from home and students to attend school remotely.

“Widespread internet outages in the area impacting remote learning today," Galvin Middle School in Wakefield, Massachusetts lamented in a tweet. “Stay patient and do best you can. It’s out of our control. Hopefully things will be resolved soon!"