• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

My TechDecisions

  • Best of Tech Decisions
  • Topics
    • Video
    • Audio
    • Mobility
    • Unified Communications
    • IT Infrastructure
    • Network Security
    • Physical Security
    • Facility
    • Compliance
  • RFP Resources
  • Resources
  • Podcasts
  • Project of the Week
  • About Us
    SEARCH
IT Infrastructure, News

The Last Month Was a Real ‘Fustercluck’ for the Internet: Here’s Why

Internet outages were reported at large throughout the last month. Some companies handled them well, while others... not so much.

July 12, 2019 TechDecisions Staff Leave a Comment

internet outages

Would you describe your recent internet experience as “apocalyptic?” Such dramatic language could be forgiven, because there were several major internet outages in the last month which affected millions of worldwide users.

According to a Tech Crunch article, the outages affected websites, services, images, direct messages, calenders, and emails. Some of which were unavailable for hours on end.

Tech Crunch says it is not likely that one single event caused all this.

How it happened

A Google Cloud internet outage occurred on June 2nd which knocked service for most on the U.S. east coast, affecting third-party sites like Discord, Snap and Vimeo, as well as Google’s Gmail and Nest. According to Google, a faulty configuration change was the cause.

Then, on June 24, Cloudflare  dropped 15% of its global traffic during an outage as a result of a network route leak, reports Tech Crunch.

“The networking giant quickly blamed Verizon for the fustercluck [sic]. Because of inherent flaws in the border gateway protocol — which manages how internet traffic is routed on the internet — Verizon effectively routed an ‘entire freeway down a neighborhood street,’ said Cloudflare in its post-mortem blog post. ‘This should never have happened because Verizon should never have forwarded those routes to the rest of the Internet,'” says the Tech Crunch article.

Companies like Amazon and Linode are reliant on Cloudflare’s infrastructure, so they also experienced problems.

The “fustercluck” continues!

On July 2, Cloudflare was hit by another outage, caused by a faulty code push.

Tech Crunch reports that Cloudflare officials blamed the outage on a bit of “regex” code in its web firewall designed to protect customer sites from JavaScript-based attacks. But that regex code caused processors to spike, crippling the service and any site reliant on it, Tech Crunch says.

Another Google outage

Google was hit by another outage on July 2 as a result of physical damage to a fiber cable, Tech Crunch reports. Facebook — including WhatsApp and Instagram — had its shared content delivery network hit with downtime. Twitter joined in the fun with a temporary break to direct messages.

Even MORE internet outages

Apple also experienced issues when iCloud was hit by a three-hour nationwide outage, affecting the App Store, Apple ID, Apple Pay and Apple TV.

Tech Crunch praised Cloudflare and Google for taking time to explain why their outages happened and looked down on Apple, Facebook, and Twitter, “all of which barely acknowledged their issues,” the article said.

What to learn from the internet outages?

“Internet providers need to do better with routing filters,” poses Tech Crunch, and “perhaps it’s not a good idea to run new code directly on a production system.”

Read Next: Google Outage Highlights Gaps in Centralized Internet

“The easy lesson is to not put all your eggs in one basket — or your data in a single cloud. But as this month showed, sometimes you can be just plain unlucky,” says Tech Crunch.

If you enjoyed this article and want to receive more valuable industry content like this, click here to sign up for our digital newsletters!

Tagged With: Internet, Networks

Related Content:

  • Cloud, SASE, Aryaka How the Cloud is Redefining Media Production and…
  • Singlewire Software mass notification interview Singlewire Software on Mass Notification Solutions
  • URI catchbox 1 Catchbox Plus: The Mic Solution That Finally Gave…
  • Engaging virtual meeting with diverse participants discussing creative ideas in a bright office space during daylight hours Diversified Survey: Workplace AV Tech is Falling Short,…

Free downloadable guide you may like:

  • Practical Design Guide for Office SpacesPractical Design Guide for Office Spaces

    Recent Gartner research shows that workers prefer to return to the office for in-person meetings for relevant milestones, as well as for face-to-face time with co-workers. When designing the office spaces — and meeting spaces in particular — enabling that connection between co-workers is crucial. But introducing the right collaboration technology in meeting spaces can […]

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Latest Downloads

Practical Design Guide for Office Spaces
Practical Design Guide for Office Spaces

Recent Gartner research shows that workers prefer to return to the office for in-person meetings for relevant milestones, as well as for face-to-fa...

New Camera Can Transform Your Live Production Workflow
New Camera System Can Transform Your Live Production Workflow

Sony's HXC-FZ90 studio camera system combines flexibility and exceptional image quality with entry-level pricing.

Creating Great User Experience and Ultimate Flexibility with Clickshare

Working and collaborating in any office environment today should be meaningful, as workers today go to office for very specific reasons. When desig...

View All Downloads

Would you like your latest project featured on TechDecisions as Project of the Week?

Apply Today!

More from Our Sister Publications

Get the latest news about AV integrators and Security installers from our sister publications:

Commercial IntegratorSecurity Sales

AV-iQ

Footer

TechDecisions

  • Home
  • Welcome to TechDecisions
  • Contact Us
  • Comment Guidelines
  • RSS Feeds
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Linkedin

Free Technology Guides

FREE Downloadable resources from TechDecisions provide timely insight into the issues that IT, A/V, and Security end-users, managers, and decision makers are facing in commercial, corporate, education, institutional, and other vertical markets

View all Guides
TD Project of the Week

Get your latest project featured on TechDecisions Project of the Week. Submit your work once and it will be eligible for all upcoming weeks.

Enter Today!
Emerald Logo
ABOUTCAREERSAUTHORIZED SERVICE PROVIDERSYour Privacy ChoicesTERMS OF USEPRIVACY POLICY

© 2025 Emerald X, LLC. All rights reserved.