Niger Experiences Brief Connectivity Disruption Affecting BGP

Niger experienced a short-lived but significant connectivity disruption on Friday, July 18, 2026, primarily affecting the internet’s control plane. The event lasted for approximately one hour, beginning at 10:30 UTC and concluding by 11:25 UTC.

Technical Details

The disruption registered a severity score of 977, with the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) signal being the most affected. The BGP signal measures the visibility of network prefixes in the global routing system, indicating a reduction in control plane stability. Concurrently, active probing for ICMP reachability across IPv4 /24 prefixes showed a 31% drop from its peak. Backscatter measurements, which serve as a proxy for aggregate connectivity, recorded a complete 100% drop during the event. The cause has not been publicly attributed.

Connectivity was reported restored by the end of the observation period.