Angola experienced a significant and prolonged network disruption lasting over eight days, from August 14 to August 23. The event was characterized by a severe drop in a key traffic measurement, though other connectivity signals remained largely stable. The cause has not been publicly attributed.
Technical Details
The disruption was observed between 14:00 UTC on August 14 and 00:30 UTC on August 23, a duration of approximately 8.4 days. The primary affected metric was the merit-nt signal, which recorded a severity score of 1,101,679. This signal, a backscatter measurement, serves as a proxy for aggregate network connectivity and showed a 58% drop from its peak value during the event.
Other core internet measurements showed minimal deviation. Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) control plane visibility for Angolan network prefixes remained stable, as did active probing for ICMP reachability across IPv4 /24 prefixes. A separate traffic forecast deviation signal also indicated a significant 67% drop from its expected baseline.
The disruption had concluded by the final observation at 00:30 UTC on August 23.
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