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Users across the northeast U.S. reported widespread internet outages Tuesday.
Verizon reported a fiber cut in Brooklyn via Twitter, although it’s not clear if that issue is responsible for the entire outage. The internet service provider didn't have any estimate for when the problem spot would be fixed.
According to DownDetector and user reports on Twitter, the problem appears to extend from Washington, D.C., to Boston, and is affecting internet and cloud providers as well as a number of Google services, Facebook and other major sites.
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Some school districts in the D.C. area said students and staff had trouble getting online for virtual learning. Schools in Fairfax County, Loudoun County, Montgomery County and Prince William County each cited reports of internet outages.
In an emailed statement 90 minutes after the outage was first reported, Verizon said it was working on the problem hurting Fios service “throughout the Northeast corridor” and that some service had already been restored.
Comcast, another major internet service provider, said it had not observed problems with its network Tuesday.
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Amazon, whose web services division powers a wide ranges of online services, indicated its network is not 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.”
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!"
Stay with NBC Washington for more details on this developing story.
