Big internet outages hit the East Coast, causing issues for Verizon, Zoom, Slack, Gmail
It was not immediately clear what was causing the outages, though many people pointed to issues with their Verizon FiOS service.
People across the East Coast were having trouble accessing core internet services Tuesday morning, just as they were logging on for work and school.
Users reported trouble loading Gmail, Slack and Zoom, apps that have become necessities to keep work-from-home life running smoothly during the coronavirus pandemic. Downdetector, which tracks reports of outages, showed widespread issues with Verizon, Google, Zoom, YouTube, Slack, Amazon Web Services and others Tuesday just before noon.
On Twitter, which many still were able to access, people reported they were seeing issues with their Verizon FiOS internet service. Verizon’s customer support team said on Twitter Tuesday that a fiber had been cut in Brooklyn, which could possibly account for some of the issues. The support account on Twitter quickly became inundated with customers asking why their internet was slow and bumpy.
It was not immediately clear what was causing the outages, though many people pointed to issues with their Verizon FiOS service. Amazon Web Services’ status page showed its service, which provides computing power to large swaths of the internet, was experiencing an issue with an external provider. On its status page, it said that it is “investigating connectivity issues with an internet provider, mainly affecting the East Coast of the United States, outside of the AWS Network.” Slack and Google said there were no issues with their own services.
Verizon and Zoom did not immediately respond to a request for comment. (Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.)
The outage also disrupted school districts’ online teaching programs, which have become essential in the past year.
In northern Virginia, the outages wreaked havoc in online classrooms, bringing the virtual school day to a standstill. In Alexandria City Public Schools, which serves 16,000 students and is currently offering online-only instruction, many teachers could not dial into Zoom to lead their Tuesday afternoon classes.
And in Fairfax County Public Schools, whose 186,000 students make it the largest school system in the state, students were unable to log into virtual lessons, according to a tweet from the school division. Like neighboring Alexandria, Fairfax is pursuing 100 percent remote learning.
“FCPS is aware that many people in our region are experiencing internet outages,” the school’s Twitter account wrote. “We will provide updates as we know more.”
Prince William County Public Schools in Virginia tweeted just after noon Tuesday that it is “aware of internet connection problems with Verizon FiOS impacting students and staff.”
The Washington Post’s Hannah Natanson contributed to this report.