US Internet Outage Count Rose 48% in One Week, ThousandEyes Reports
Cisco ThousandEyes counted 237 US network outage events from October 12 to 18, 2026, up from 160 the week before. ISP outages rose 28%.
237
US network outage events counted for October 12 to 18, 2026
+48%
change from 160 US events the week before
+28%
rise in US ISP outage events, from 60 to 77
387
global network outage events in the same week, up 25%
What the weekly count shows
Cisco ThousandEyes counted 237 network outage events in the United States between October 12 and 18, 2026, up from 160 the week before. Its weekly summary, published by Network World, puts the global total at 387, up 25% from 310. The count covers ISPs, cloud provider networks, collaboration apps, and edge services such as DNS and content delivery networks.
An outage event in this count is a period when ThousandEyes' measurements show a network failing or degrading. It is not a count of households without service, and one event can last minutes or hours.
Where the increase came from
- ISP outages: the US rose from 60 to 77, up 28%. Globally they fell slightly, from 146 to 138.
- Public cloud networks: the US rose from 60 to 90, up 50%. Globally the figure went from 73 to 132, up 81%.
- Collaboration apps: zero events in the US and globally in both weeks.
Notable events earlier in October
ThousandEyes flagged two incidents in the week of October 5 to 11. On October 8, a Comcast Communications outage lasted one hour and 21 minutes and affected customers and partners in several regions, including the US. On October 10, a Hurricane Electric transit outage lasted 13 minutes, initially centered on nodes in Dallas and Salt Lake City, and affected partners in the US and abroad.
The count and the trend are not settled. ThousandEyes' own blog gives lower US figures for overlapping weeks, 113 outages for October 6 to 12 and 65 for October 13 to 19, and reports a decline in the second week. The two publications may count differently. Until the methodology is reconciled, read the 48% rise as what the Network World summary reports, not as a confirmed trend.
What to do if your home internet drops
- Check whether it is local. Look at your provider's status page or app, and ask a neighbor on the same provider.
- Test with a wired connection. If a laptop connected by cable also fails, the problem is likely upstream rather than your Wi-Fi.
- Write down the time and call. Outage credits, where offered, depend on your provider's terms and often on a record of the outage.
The internet outage guide explains the common causes and what to check first.
What this article does not show
These are third-party monitoring counts, not counts of affected customers. TrackOutages has not verified any of them. The methodology page explains how our own reports are counted and where they fall short.
Sources: ThousandEyes weekly internet report, as published by Network World ("2026 network outage report and internet health check"); ThousandEyes blog, "Explaining the AWS Outage and Other Recent Incidents".