United States East Coast Internet Blackout Being Investigated By The Government

On Tuesday, U.S. renowned broadband service provider Verizon Communications encountered internet service failure, which further affected the entire East Coast of America and other US tech companies, including Slack, Amazon, Zoom, and Google, etc.

Before the widespread interruption of internet connectivity, Verizon already detected a fibre cut around Brooklyn and took precautions to forewarn its users, likewise the affected vicinity residents.

Verizon’s spokesman also shed light concerning the issue — he noted that his company was aware of the issue before its occurrence because the blackout had every tendency to affect its service quality. He also noted that his company had “already seen service levels start to restore,” which started from the Northeastern area within the East Coast.

The government agency, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), also intervened in the matter, saying they were looking into it and analysing the situation.

The next FCC chairperson, Jessica Rosenworcel, commented on the blackout via her Social media account, Twitter — she noted that other federal government agencies such as the Homeland Security Bureau and public safety are intensively investigating the issue from its root.

Downdetector.com — a designated website that monitors service blackout. Their report revealed Slack Technologies Inc, Comcast Corp, and Roblox Corp as the other tech companies affected by the blackout.

Amazon’s AWS announced they had resolved the issue, and the connectivity linked to its services has been duly restored. Amazon broadcasted the message via a header on its cloud computing website.

Earlier on, the cloud computing company revealed the investigation they conducted with another network service provider, investigating what interrupted internet services and its server connectivity. Amazon needed to rectify the issue because other online businesses are connected to its server.

Google’s spokesman confirmed that they received many reports directed from their customers about their products’ unavailability — their customers could not gain access to connect to Google’s products thinking maybe it crashed. However, Google clarified that all their services are running perfectly with no bugs found.

According to Downdetector’s report, Robinhood and Charles Schwab Corp were not affected by the blackout — although active shoppers on the retail trading platforms also reported technical issues specifically on its market sections to have lasted 48 hours concurrently.

Charles Schwab spokesman commented “Earlier this morning, we experienced an issue with bank balances not displaying accurately that has since been resolved. The retail trading platform did not impact trading functionality.”

Although, Robinhood tried to relate their issues with the possibility that they might be affected by the blackout due to Verizon’s complications at the odd hour. Nonetheless, the retail trading platform website was fully accessible even though the major American broadband service provider is offline.