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Cable cuts, storms, and DNS: a look at Internet disruptions in Q4 2025 (opens in new tab)

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In Q4 2025, Internet disruptions were driven primarily by submarine cable cuts, power failures, extreme events, technical problems, and one government-directed shutdown. Tanzania experienced a prolonged election-related blackout, while damaged international cables disrupted connectivity in Haiti, Pakistan, Cameroon, and the Dominican Republic. Cloudflare’s analysis uses major deviations in network traffic and routing announcements to identify these incidents, though it is not exhaustive.

Government-Directed Shutdown

Tanzania

  • Internet traffic fell by more than 90% on October 29 during violent protests surrounding the presidential election.
  • The initial shutdown lasted about 26 hours, but a second near-total outage began shortly after service briefly returned.
  • Connectivity did not substantially recover until November 3.
  • Announced IPv4 and IPv6 address space declined slightly but never disappeared entirely, indicating that Tanzania was not completely disconnected from the global Internet.
  • Internet and social media restrictions had also occurred ahead of Tanzania’s 2020 elections.

Submarine and Fiber Cable Cuts

Digicel Haiti

  • Digicel Haiti suffered two international fiber cuts during the quarter.
  • On October 16, traffic fell to nearly zero; the provider reported two cuts and restored the first fiber within several hours.
  • On November 25, another cut along National Road 1 caused a complete outage lasting roughly six hours.
  • Service was restored after repairs to the international optical fiber infrastructure.

Cybernet/StormFiber in Pakistan

  • Traffic dropped to about half its expected level on October 20, while announced IPv4 address space fell by more than one-third.
  • The cause was a cut to the PEACE submarine cable in the Red Sea near Sudan.
  • Pakistan has multiple international cable routes, including IMEWE and SEA-ME-WE-4, which helped enable rapid recovery.
  • Traffic and address announcements returned close to normal by October 21, ahead of the provider’s October 27 restoration target.

Cameroon and the WACS Cable

  • Camtel, MTN Cameroon, and Orange Cameroun experienced major disruptions on October 23 because of an incident involving the West Africa Cable System (WACS).
  • Traffic initially fell around 05:00 local time and recovered by approximately 22:00, although it fluctuated dramatically and sometimes dropped by 90–99%.
  • MTN and Orange also saw reductions in announced IP address space, while Camtel’s announcements remained stable.
  • The volatility may have reflected attempts to reroute traffic over other submarine cables.
  • Connectivity in the Central African Republic and Republic of Congo was reportedly affected as well.

Claro Dominicana

  • Claro Dominicana experienced two sharp traffic declines on December 9.
  • Traffic eventually fell 77% below the comparable level from the previous week.
  • The provider attributed the disruption to two severed fiber-optic cables, which caused intermittent service and slow speeds.
  • Technicians restored nationwide service after repairing the cables.

Power-Related Disruption

Dominican Republic

  • A transmission-line outage on November 11 caused a major national power interruption.
  • Internet traffic fell by nearly 50% compared with the previous week and remained depressed until December 12.
  • The electrical operator later reported that 96% of national demand had been restored.
  • A technical report traced the blackout to a manually disconnected live line at the 138 kV San Pedro de Macorís I substation.
  • The resulting short circuit triggered protection systems and disconnected nearby lines, separating 575 MW of generation.

Overall Pattern

  • More than 180 Internet disruptions were observed globally during 2025.
  • Q4 included only one government-directed shutdown, but several international cable failures caused severe regional outages.
  • Traffic measurements and BGP address announcements helped distinguish partial connectivity loss from complete national disconnection.
  • The incidents demonstrate how dependent national networks remain on a limited number of submarine cables, fiber routes, and reliable electrical infrastructure.

Cloudflare’s findings suggest that network operators should diversify international cable routes, improve redundancy, and prepare for power and infrastructure failures. The Cloudflare Radar Outage Center provides a broader list of verified anomalies and confirmed outages.