Internet outages: Q4 2022 review
Cloudflare's network spans over 250 cities in more than 100 countries, interconnecting with over 10,000 network providers. This vantage point offers a broad view of Internet resilience and disruption patterns worldwide. While Q4 2022 saw fewer major outages than some recent quarters, Iran and Ukraine remained persistent trouble spots, and the timing of some government-directed shutdowns was particularly disruptive given the World Cup and holiday shopping season.
Government-directed shutdowns
Authoritarian governments frequently impose multi-hour Internet blackouts during periods of civil unrest, restricting communication among protestors and preventing them from sharing information with the outside world. Cuba, Sudan and Iran all engaged in such tactics during the quarter.
Cuba: post-hurricane unrest
After Hurricane Ian knocked out power across Cuba in late September, slow restoration efforts led to protests that were reportedly the largest since demonstrations over a year earlier. The government responded with several Internet shutdowns. Following an initial outage on September 29–30 (documented in the Q3 2022 report), another shutdown occurred between 1900 on September 30 and 0245 on October 1 (0000–0745 UTC), as shown below.
Sudan: coup anniversary blackout
Thousands of Sudanese citizens took to the streets on October 25 to mark the first anniversary of the military coup that derailed the country's transition to civilian rule. Sudan's government has a well-established pattern of Internet shutdowns during civil unrest and again cut off connectivity in response. Traffic from Sudan dropped to near zero on October 25 between 0945–1740 local time (0745–1540 UTC).
Iran: continued curfews and regional shutdowns
Iran's daily Internet "curfews" — typically imposed between 1600 and midnight local time (1230–2030 UTC) on mobile networks AS44244 (Irancell), AS57218 (RighTel) and AS197207 (MCCI) — continued into early October, with additional outages on October 8, 12 and 15. Notably, the graph suggests RighTel, the smallest of the three providers, did not impose the shutdowns after the end of September.
Regional disruptions also occurred. In Sanandaj, Kurdistan Province, a complete shutdown on October 26 was implemented in response to demonstrations marking the 40th day since the death of Mahsa Amini. Traffic loss began at 1030 local time (0700 UTC) and lasted until 0805 local time on October 27 (0435 UTC). In December, a province-level disruption lasting from December 18 through December 25 was also observed.
The economic consequences of Iran's Internet disruptions have been severe. A December post from Filterwatch shared a letter from mobile operator Rightel's Managing Director Yasser Rezakhah stating:
"During the past few weeks, the company's resources and income have significantly decreased during Internet shutdowns and other restrictions, such as limiting Internet bandwidth from 21 September. They have also caused a decrease in data use from subscribers, decreasing data traffic by around 50%." The letter also warned that a "continued lack of compensation for losses could lead to bankruptcy."
Iranian officials have echoed these concerns. Valiollah Bayati, MP for Tafresh and Ashtian in Markazi province, stated in parliament that continued shutdowns have forced many businesses to close, calling on the government to take action. Data cited by the news site entekhab.ir further illustrates the scale of the damage:
Since the 30th of Shahrivar month and with the beginning of the government disruption in the Internet, the country's businesses have been damaged daily at least 50 million tomans and at most 500 million tomans. More than 41% of companies have lost 25-50% of their income during this period, and about 47% have had more than 50% reduction in sales. A review of the data of the research assistant of the country's tax affairs organization shows that the Internet outage in Iran has caused 3000 billion tomans of damage per day. That is, the cost of 3 months of Internet outage in Iran is equal to 43% of one year's oil revenue of the country ($25 billion).
Power grid failures cut connectivity across three continents
Bangladesh
A grid failure on October 4 left more than 140 million people in Bangladesh without electricity. The cause was traced to power distribution companies failing to follow load-shedding instructions from the National Load Dispatch Centre. Internet traffic from the country dropped starting at 1405 local time (0805 UTC) and took roughly seven hours to return to expected levels, around 1900 local time (1500 UTC).
Pakistan
Just over a week later, a fault in Pakistan's national grid southern transmission system caused power outages across Sindh, Punjab, and Balochistan. Faulty equipment and sub-standard maintenance were reported as the cause. In Sindh, traffic dropped nearly 30% compared to the previous week starting at 0935 local time (0435 UTC) on October 6. The disruption lasted over 15 hours, with traffic recovering at 0100 on October 7 (2000 UTC on October 6).
Sindh, Pakistan (Source: Map data ©2023 Google)
Kenya
Kenya Power posted on November 24 at 1525 local time that it had "lost bulk power supply to various parts of the country due to a system disturbance." A follow-up post at 2150 local time stated that normal power supply had been restored. The timeline of those notifications aligns with the loss of Internet traffic visible in observed data, which lasted between 1500–2050 local time (1200–1750 UTC).
United States (Moore County, North Carolina)
On December 3, two electrical substations in Moore County, North Carolina were damaged by gunfire. The resulting power outages began just after 1900 local time (0000 UTC on December 4) and took multiple days to resolve, causing concurrent Internet traffic loss in affected communities. Traffic in West End appeared to return midday (UTC) on December 5 but fell again during the afternoon of December 6. In Pinehurst, traffic began to recover slowly after about a day, returning to more normal levels around 0800 local time (1300 UTC) on December 7.
West End and Pinehurst, North Carolina. (Source: Map data ©2023 Google)
Ukraine
Russian missile strikes throughout the fourth quarter of 2022 caused widespread damage to electrical infrastructure in Ukraine, resulting in power outages and Internet disruptions. Several examples stand out, though they represent only a fraction of the total disruptions observed.
On October 20, the destruction of several power stations in Kyiv resulted in a 25% drop in Internet traffic from Kyiv City compared to the two previous weeks, starting around 0900 local time (0700 UTC).
Kyiv City, Ukraine. (Source: Map data ©2023 Google)
On November 23, widespread power outages after Russian strikes caused a nearly 50% decrease in Internet traffic in Ukraine, starting just after 1400 local time (1200 UTC). The disruption lasted nearly a day and a half, with traffic returning to expected levels around 2345 local time on November 24 (2145 UTC).
On December 16, strikes targeting power infrastructure caused country-level traffic to drop around 13% at 0915 local time (0715 UTC), with the disruption lasting until midnight local time (2200 UTC). At a network level, the impact was more severe: AS13188 (Triolan) saw a 70% drop in traffic, while AS15895 (Kyivstar) dropped 40%.
Cable damage causes brief but complete connectivity loss
Shetland Islands, United Kingdom
The Shetland Islands rely primarily on the SHEFA-2 submarine cable system for Internet connectivity to the Scottish mainland. Late in the evening of October 19, damage to this cable knocked the islands almost completely offline. Given the recent reported sabotage of the Nord Stream natural gas pipelines, there was concern about intentional damage, but authorities believed the damage was caused by errant fishing vessels.
The impact proved relatively short-lived compared to the multi-day disruptions often associated with submarine cable cuts. Traffic dropped just after 2300 local time (2200 UTC) on October 19 and recovered 14.5 hours later, just after 1430 local time (1330 UTC) on October 20.
Shetland Islands, United Kingdom. (Source: Map data ©2023 GeoBasis-DE/BKG (©2009), Google)
Earthquake disrupts Solomon Islands traffic
A magnitude 7.0 earthquake near the Solomon Islands on November 22 caused a significant drop in Internet traffic from the country starting at 1300 local time (0200 UTC). Traffic levels recovered 11 hours later at around 2000 local time (0900 UTC).
Technical failures and configuration errors
Kyrgyzstan
A three-hour Internet disruption was observed in Kyrgyzstan on October 24 between 1100–1400 local time (0500–0800 UTC). The country's Ministry of Digital Development attributed the cause to "an accident on one of the main lines that supply the Internet," without providing additional details.
Australia (Aussie Broadband)
Customers of Aussie Broadband in Victoria and New South Wales experienced brief disruptions on October 27. AS4764 (Aussie Broadband) traffic from Victoria dropped by approximately 40% between 1505–1745 local time (0405–0645 UTC). A similar but briefer loss was observed in New South Wales, lasting between 1515–1550 local time (0415–0450 UTC). A company representative explained that "A config change was made which was pushed out through automation to the DHCP servers in those states," adding that the change had been rolled back but recovery was taking time, with areas being brought back up manually one at a time.
Victoria and New South Wales, Australia. (Source: Map data ©2023 Google)
Haiti
Customers of Access Haiti experienced disrupted service for more than half a day on November 9. Traffic for AS27759 (Access Haiti) fell sharply around midnight local time (0500 UTC) and remained depressed until 1430 local time (1930 UTC). A Facebook post from the provider cited "an intermittent outage on one of our international circuits." Haiti's international connectivity is provided by two submarine cables: the Bahamas Domestic Submarine Network (BDSNi), connecting to the Bahamas, and Fibralink, connecting to the Dominican Republic and Jamaica.
Undisclosed Causes
Not every outage can be traced to a declared event. In some cases, the affected providers never publicly explain what went wrong, leaving the cause of the disruption unknown.
Wide Open West (US)
On November 15, customers of US ISP Wide Open West experienced a service interruption lasting just over an hour. The disruption affected traffic on AS12083 in Alabama and Michigan, with a drop beginning at 1150 local time (1650 UTC) and recovery shortly after 1300 local time (1800 UTC). The provider did not disclose a reason for the incident.
Cuba
Cuba has a history of Internet outages tied to government-directed shutdowns, fiber cuts, and power failures. However, no cause was shared for a seven-hour traffic disruption observed from 2345 on November 25 to 0645 on November 26 local time (0445–1145 UTC on November 26). During that window, traffic fell by as much as 75% from prior levels.
SpaceX Starlink
As a low earth orbit (LEO) satellite provider with global reach, any Starlink outage has wide potential impact. On November 30, a disruption on AS14593 (SPACEX-STARLINK) was observed between 2050–2130 UTC, with traffic briefly dropping to near zero. Starlink neither acknowledged the incident nor offered any explanation.
Key Takeaways from 2022
Reviewing the year’s disruptions reveals recurring patterns. In countries with authoritarian governments, network-level or national shutdowns were used to restrict communication — a tactic employed aggressively in Iran during the final months of the year.
The war in Ukraine made Internet connectivity an early casualty. Network-level outages were common in the conflict’s opening phase, and some Ukrainian networks eventually saw traffic rerouted through upstream Russian providers. Later, as Russian attacks increasingly targeted electrical infrastructure, widespread power outages caused multi-hour Internet disruptions across the country.
The volcanic eruption in Tonga took the country offline for over a month, given its dependence on a single submarine cable. In other regions, earthquake damage produced shorter and more contained outages throughout the year.
Submarine cable faults can affect multiple countries along a route, but services with a growing global footprint—like Starlink, which operates in over 30 countries—mean that disruptions now carry a broader impact, even with a comparatively small subscriber base.
For ongoing monitoring of such events, the Cloudflare Radar Outage Center (CROC) and the @CloudflareRadar Twitter account provide timely updates. Summaries of earlier 2022 disruptions are available in the Q1, Q2, and Q3 overview posts.
