A widespread internet outage early Monday morning, Oct. 20, temporarily disrupted dozens of popular websites and apps worldwide. The cause was traced to a major failure within Amazon Web Services (AWS), the cloud-computing foundation that powers a significant portion of the internet.
The outage began around 3 a.m. Eastern time, when Amazon’s U.S.-East-1 data center in Northern Virginia suffered a Domain Name System (D.N.S.) malfunction that interfered with data routing and cloud storage. Services were gradually restored by about 6:30 a.m., but disruptions continued into the morning as websites struggled to recover from server backlogs.
“Amazon’s most profitable division is the Amazon Web Services, which allows companies to organize data, store information and process computations more efficiently,” junior Stanley Tsai said. “It’s a cloud service that supports major platforms like Reddit, Netflix and Airbnb. When AWS experienced an outage, countless websites, apps and online services couldn’t function properly.”
The AWS failure affected nearly every sector of online activity. Amazon’s own site, Alexa smart devices and Ring security systems were among the first to go offline. Social media platforms including Snapchat and Reddit became inaccessible, and entertainment and gaming services such as Fortnite and Roblox also faced connection errors.
Some financial and consumer platforms including Venmo and Coinbase reported login delays. Streaming services also faced interruptions, frustrating consumers during early morning hours.
Even education technology was affected, with Canvas and Duolingo among the platforms that temporarily went down. The disruption left teachers unable to post assignments of grade work, and students were locked out of coursework submission portals.
At North High, although the outage was resolved before the start of the school day, its aftereffects continued throughout the week. Many schools that rely on cloud-hosted learning management systems experienced slowdowns and delayed access to digital resources.
“The Canvas outage was particularly inconvenient since all of my classwork and homework was posted there,” junior Kendall Aufenanger said. “I couldn’t access or submit any assignments, which was frustrating.”
The brief message from Mr. Ragot reflected the quick communication and flexibility many educators showed during the outage, reassuring students to adapt as systems recovered.
Yet, students and teachers continuously reported ongoing Wi-Fi connectivity issues and difficulty accessing educational tools during the week. The timing was especially challenging for juniors who sat for the PSAT on Saturday, Oct. 25, using College Board’s Bluebook digital testing platform.
The Bluebook app ran slower than usual and occasionally lost connection before and during the test. Teachers and proctors noted these delays in the system, but testing continued.
“When I arrived at school, I kept checking to make sure I had Wi-Fi, and I even restarted my iPad until it connected,” junior Elena Zhuang said. “But right before the test began, the Wi-Fi disconnected. I spent about ten minutes trying to fix it, so while everyone else was on their break, I was still finishing the last ten minutes of the English Module 2.”
Clearly, the outage left a lasting impact on students, especially during a high-stakes exam like the P.S.A.T., where performance can determine eligibility for the National Merit Scholarship. For students like Zhuang, even a short delay or technical issue added unnecessary stress and distraction, potentially affecting their scores. The disruption underscores how dependent standardized testing has become on reliable internet connections, raising concerns about fairness and accessibility in an increasingly digital testing environment.
Beyond academics, social media outages added onto student frustration. Platforms hosted partly on A.W.S. were offline for several hours on Monday morning, slowing down common communication means for teens.
By midday Monday, Amazon confirmed that the issue had been fully mitigated and emphasized that it was caused by an internal systems error. The company issued an apology and promised to review its network redundancies.
Still, the outage served as a reminder of how dependent both schools and the public have become on centralized cloud systems. Teachers postponed online deadlines, students faced testing complications and even routine digital tasks like checking grades or submitting assignments became unavailable.
Despite the widespread disruption, the incident ultimately highlighted the resilience and adaptability of both schools and online systems. Within hours, most platforms had restored full functionality, and educators and students quickly adjusted to new deadlines and alternatives. As technology continues to evolve the outage served as a reminder of the importance of digital preparedness for more reliable systems in the future.
