Cloudflare Radar logged 49 internet disruptions in a quarter: 18 were exam shutdowns in Iraq, 14 were power outages

In the third quarter, Iraq shut the internet down 18 times for exams. That is more than all the power outages Cloudflare Radar recorded in the same period: 14.

The shutdown is a decision, not a failure: it sits in the exam timetable. Cloudflare quotes Internet Society Pulse: Iraq's Minister of Communication, Mustafa Sanad, confirmed the shutdown in a video message and vowed to develop a digital system that would remove the need for centralized exam distribution and, with it, the need to cut internet access on exam days. Syria and Sudan, which have also often cut the internet for exams in recent years, have no such shutdown this quarter. By Cloudflare's reading, the likely reason is exam calendars, and no clear shift in policy shows.

Power was the second cause. On 10 September in Honduras, a power failure at one interconnection facility hit at least 11 major providers, and for about three hours HTTP traffic across the country fell by 63%. Cloudflare offers it as an example of how concentrated traffic exchange points can become single points of failure.

In Ethiopia's Tigray region, renewed conflict was accompanied by a government-directed internet shutdown that lasted 10 days. Traffic from there vanished completely, down 100%. The shutdown appears to have stayed in the region, but it showed across the country too: Ethiopia's HTTP traffic fell by up to 30%.

Cloudflare says it will keep watching Iraq's networks while the promised system is being built. If Radar sees no shutdowns in that half hour during the next exam session, that will be the first sign it has started working.

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