Guatemala experienced a significant disruption to its internet control plane beginning on August 21, 2026, lasting for over 16 hours. The event, which started at 08:25 UTC and concluded by 00:30 UTC on August 22, was characterized by a severe degradation in the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) signal, registering a severity score of 1,123.
Technical Details
The disruption primarily affected the BGP control plane, which is responsible for routing visibility between networks. The BGP median signal, a measure of the number of visible network prefixes, remained stable at 2,806 throughout the event but was the sole signal to record a significant severity score, indicating a major control plane anomaly. Other connectivity metrics showed more modest deviations. The ping-slash24 signal, measuring ICMP reachability across IPv4 network blocks, saw a 3% drop from its peak. The merit-nt backscatter measurement, an aggregate proxy for connectivity, recorded a 42% decline from its observed peak. The cause has not been publicly attributed.
The disruption was resolved by the end of the observation window.