Niger experiences BGP control plane disruption lasting over 10 hours

Niger experienced a significant disruption to its internet control plane visibility on Monday, July 28, 2026. The event began at 14:15 UTC and lasted for approximately 10.3 hours, concluding around 00:30 UTC on July 29. The disruption was primarily characterized by a severe degradation in the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) signal.

Technical Details

The event registered a severity score of 10,620. The primary affected signal was BGP, which measures the control plane visibility of internet routing prefixes. The BGP median value remained stable at 194 visible prefixes throughout the event window, indicating no net loss of announced routes but a potential loss of path diversity or stability.

Concurrently, other measurement signals showed varying levels of impact. The Merit Network Telescope (merit-nt) backscatter signal, an aggregate proxy for internet connectivity, dropped to zero for periods during the disruption. The ping-slash24 signal, which measures ICMP reachability across IPv4 /24 network blocks, showed a 19% drop from its peak reachability. The Google Traffic Report (gtr) signal, reflecting traffic volume, deviated from its expected baseline, showing a 40% drop from its observed peak.

The cause has not been publicly attributed.

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