Government-directed shutdowns, military action, and power shortages were the prominent causes of Internet outages in Q1 2026, according to Cloudflare’s Internet disruption report for the quarter.
The report covers disruptions occurring in the three months up to March 31.
The governments of Uganda and the Republic of Congo shut down Internet access during their respective elections in January and March.
In Iran, Internet access was mostly shut off in January following widespread anti-government protests.
The current war between Iran and the US, which began with American military strikes on February 28, has led the government to impose an Internet shutdown that is still ongoing.
The intensity and frequency of shutdowns is a sharp contrast to Q4 2025, which only saw one government-directed shutdown in Tanzania following protests during a presidential election.
Iranian drone strikes on data centers operated by AWS and Oracle in the UAE and Bahrain have also led to brief outages.
Access to the Internet in Ukraine was affected by Russian attacks on energy infrastructure in the region of Dnipropetrovsk and the city of Kharkiv.
Brief power outages led to Internet outages in Argentina, Moldova, Ukraine, Paraguay, the Dominican Republic, and the US Virgin Islands. Cuba’s electrical grid experienced three separate collapses in March.
A cyclone called Storm Kristin caused outages in the Portuguese districts of Leiria, Coimbra, and Santarem in late January.
Cable damage to the West Africa Cable System in early January meant that the Republic of Congo’s Internet was disrupted for around two days, and technical issues with Verizon in the US, Flow Grenada in Grenada, Orange Guinee in Guinea, and TalkTalk in the UK also led to brief disruptions.
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