Ookla® is a global leader in connectivity intelligence that provides consumers, businesses, and other organizations with data-driven insights to improve networks and connected experiences.
A major service disruption involving Cloudflare last week underscored the systemic concentration risk present in today’s internet ecosystem, where so much of the world’s internet traffic depends on a small number of core providers. With over 3.3 million Downdetector user reports across all impacted services globally, the event demonstrated the wide-ranging and cascading impact that foundational infrastructure failures have on countless dependent online services.
Downdetector Reports Highlight Global Impact of Cloudflare Outage
The Cloudflare disruption on November 18, 2025, was not a simple capacity overload, but a systemic failure of the global control plane. Preliminary analysis indicates that a configuration update intended to optimize routing across the Cloudflare backbone inadvertently triggered a “thundering herd” scenario, causing edge locations to reject valid traffic.
As shown in the timeline below, the issue began at 11:00 AM UTC when the erroneous config propagated to the Europe and North America regions simultaneously. Because Cloudflare acts as the “immune system” and content delivery layer for a significant portion of the modern web, this single point of failure instantly decoupled backend infrastructure (AWS/Google) from end-users, affecting services ranging from low-latency gaming (League of Legends) to real-time AI inference (OpenAI).
The significant blast radius meant that the incident triggered a massive surge in user-reported problems. Downdetector amassed over 3.3 million global user reports across impacted services over the course of the outage. The graphic below offers a timeline of how the reports started to appear on Downdetector:
Downstream Impact: Services Most Affected by Cloudflare Outage
The primary impact was felt by services that rely on Cloudflare’s infrastructure. Besides just Cloudflare, we saw a surge in reports for a number of impacted services. Here is a look at the services that received the most reports during this time:
The impact spanned multiple critical verticals, including Streaming, Gaming, and Cloud/SaaS providers.
Global Outage Volume by Region
In addition to impacting individual services, we were able to track the global footprint of the outage by monitoring reports by country. The United States received the most reports during this time with over 150K reports on Cloudflare alone.
The ability to quickly see a geographic heatmap of problem reports is a key feature in the Downdetector Explorer dashboard, helping teams quickly see if an issue is regional or global.
A Succession of Major Outages is Stimulating Deeper Policymaker Oversight
This outage lands in the middle of a wider policy shift that treats large cloud and internet infrastructure providers as potential sources of systemic risk rather than ordinary vendors. In the EU, regulators have just published the first list of critical ICT third-party providers under the new Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA), bringing hyperscale cloud, data centre and network providers into a dedicated oversight regime that explicitly targets concentration risk, while the UK is rolling out a parallel Critical Third Parties framework for services whose disruption could threaten financial stability.
Coming so soon after a major AWS outage and other large-scale incidents, the Cloudflare event is likely to be used as further evidence that dependence on a small number of core cloud and edge platforms is now a live concern for boards, regulators and policymakers, and that organizations need much better mapping, monitoring and stress-testing of their third-party digital dependencies.
For companies operating in these complex environments, understanding the true scope and source of a disruption is vital. Downdetector Explorer allows companies to quickly monitor both their own services and the third-party dependencies (like cloud hosting providers) to understand when external issues affect their customer experience.
Ready to turn user reports into actionable intelligence? Learn how you can leverage Downdetector to be better prepared for outages by visiting downdetector.com/for-business.
Ookla retains ownership of this article including all of the intellectual property rights, data, content graphs and analysis. This article may not be quoted, reproduced, distributed or published for any commercial purpose without prior consent. Members of the press and others using the findings in this article for non-commercial purposes are welcome to publicly share and link to report information with attribution to Ookla.
Ookla® is a global leader in connectivity intelligence that provides consumers, businesses, and other organizations with data-driven insights to improve networks and connected experiences.
The Era of Connectivity Has Changed: As customer expectations increase and high-speed internet access matures,the new No. 1 battleground for ISP customer satisfaction and retention is the “last 50 feet”—the in-building Wi-Fi experience. For enterprises, the move to wireless-first has made Wi-Fi the backbone of employee productivity and operational continuity.
There is a Massive Market Gap: The industry’s current two-tiered support model relies on either low-visibility guesswork without specialized tools that leads to costly repeat truck rolls, or unscalable expert devices that are too expensive and complex to deploy fleetwide.
Speedtest Pulse™ Fills This Gap: We built Speedtest Pulse to solve this specific, costly problem. Pulse is a new, professional-grade diagnostic tool, precision-engineered at a disruptive price point. It empowers every frontline technician—for the first time—to definitively validate installs, resolve Wi-Fi issues on the first visit, and provide proof of performance.
The Connectivity Landscape Today
Wi-Fi is now the primary lens through which residential and business customers experience and judge their internet service. For Internet Service Providers (ISPs), controlling the quality of that experience has become a critical battleground for customer satisfaction and retention. For enterprises, Wi-Fi is the backbone of employee productivity and a critical component of core operations.
The internet’s evolution is driven by a constant cycle between infrastructure and applications. When ISPs build faster networks, they create new capacity. Application developers fill that capacity with more demanding experiences, such as the shift from standard-definition to 4K streaming. These new, richer applications quickly become the standard, raising user expectations and creating demand for even more network speed and quality. This virtuous circle in which infrastructure enables innovation, innovation raises consumer expectations, and together those create demands for better infrastructure, is the engine that pushes our digital world forward.
For the last two decades, ISPs have viewed their greatest challenge as the last mile—the final leg of the network connecting their infrastructure to the subscriber’s premises. This became the industry’s primary focus, the biggest driver of capital expenditure (CapEx), and the main competitive battleground.
And now, that last-mile challenge is fundamentally changing, largely becoming a problem of execution and investment—not capability. The industry has multiple, powerful paths to deliver speed—from fiber and DOCSIS 4.0 to innovations in low-Earth-orbit (LEO) satellite and fixed wireless access (FWA). While the competition to deploy these solutions is immense, the raw speed to the doorstep is less of a problem for a majority of customers in advanced markets.
For an increasing number of ISPs and their customers, the challenge is no longer about getting the necessary speed to the building, but about what happens once it gets inside. By delivering all that speed to the modem, ISPs have also shined a massive spotlight on a new bottleneck: the in-building Wi-Fi experience—the “last 50 feet.” The entire digital experience, from the enterprise to the living room, is now wireless. For example, the average U.S. internet household has about 17 connected devices, and the Macbook Pro hasn’t had an ethernet port in over a decade.
Rising Consumer Expectations
This new in-building bottleneck—where weak Wi-Fi coverage, interference, congestion, or device issues can cause slow speeds or other issues—hasn’t just created a technical problem; it has exposed a massive gap between what customers now expect and what most ISPs efficiently deliver. While Ookla data confirms broadband speeds are rising, the customer sentiment of fiber customers is actually declining. New benchmarks from the American Customer Satisfaction Index show every single one of 14 key satisfaction metrics—from reliability to streaming quality—declined from 2024 to 2025 among fiber customers.
Consumer expectations have fundamentally changed, shifting away from just speed and towards whole-home or business connectivity. In fact, consumers now see their ISP as the single point of responsibility for their entire connected experience. The proof is in the data: a 2025 Techsee report based on a survey of nearly four thousand U.S. households found that 77% of consumers expect providers to test coverage during installation and verify that every room is connected. They don’t just want a promise of speed; they want trusted proof of coverage.
This new expectation comes with a severe, high-stakes penalty for failure: customer churn. Customer loyalty is no longer tied to the last-mile cable, but to the quality of the in-home experience. The same Techsee study found that 51% of consumers would switch providers if their Wi-Fi issues aren’t resolved quickly. This is the new battleground for customers, fought across the entire in-home experience, from the living room to the back bedroom to every corner where users expect flawless connectivity.
The problem is that ISPs are being held accountable for an environment they can’t see, which poses a significant reputational risk. This gap between customer expectations and reality is already at a breaking point.
68% of households reported Wi-Fi problems in the past 12 months.
39% of those households required a technician to be dispatched, a process commonly known as a “truck roll.”
Worse, about 20% of those costly truck rolls failed to resolve the issue on the first visit—a classic “No Fault Found” scenario where the tech proves the speed to the modem is good, but the customer’s problem remains unsolved.
Based on these figures, common connectivity issues can cost a typical ISP with one million subscribers up to $140 million annually in customer churn and technician costs.
This crisis of rising expectations, however, hides a massive opportunity. Data shows that customers aren’t unreasonable; they just want proof. In fact, 56% of consumers said they would purchase additional equipment, like mesh systems, if a technician presented them with clear evidence of coverage gaps.
The findings from the Techsee study create a clear mandate for ISPs: solve the top customer complaint (in-home Wi-Fi issues), reduce repeat truck rolls, stop churn, and turn a costly service call into a new revenue stream by giving technicians the proof they need to recommend upgrades or additional equipment that improve the in-home experience.
Gap in Current ISP Solutions
The industry has been actively trying to gain visibility into the in-home experience for years. The problem is that the available tools were either not purpose-built or not scalable for this new, complex, and highly variable environment. This critical mismatch has forced providers into a largely broken, two-tiered operational model.
The first tier is the default model for the vast majority of subscribers, and relies on low-visibility guesswork. When a customer calls their ISP with a Wi-Fi complaint, the ISP’s diagnostics stop at the modem, providing an “inside-out” view, using CPE-embedded tools. This approach, which Ookla also provides, is valuable for getting a performance baseline from the router, or for proving service levels to the router. However, it cannot measure the true customer experience, which happens on a device two rooms away. This inside-out view is also completely blind the moment a customer plugs in their own router, leaving support teams with little or zero visibility.
This process inevitably results in a “No Fault Found” truck roll. A frontline technician is dispatched—at significant operational cost—without the tools needed to definitively diagnose the in-building problem. Instead, the technician is limited to confirming whether the service to the home is working, leaving the customer’s problem unsolved and increasing the risk of churn.
The second tier is the expert escalation model, reserved for high-value accounts where the cost of failure is too great to risk customer loss or reputational damage. When all else fails, the ISP is forced to escalate. This requires dispatching an expert network engineer equipped with highly specialized, enterprise-grade hardware.
While this specialist approach can eventually find the root cause, the model itself is operationally and financially unsustainable. These specialized devices cost thousands of dollars each and require significant training for thousands of ISP troubleshooting technicians and installation teams, making them economically unfeasible to deploy at scale. More importantly, they are what we call ‘data-rich, but insight-poor.’ Many of these tools provide complex RF data that requires an expert to interpret—not a simple, actionable recommendation.
Furthermore, these tools are not designed for autonomous testing of network performance; they are only useful when a technician is physically on-site, making it nearly impossible to diagnose the intermittent problems that frustrate customers and generate the most repeat truck rolls.
The fundamental challenges of large enterprise connectivity
ISPs aren’t the only ones struggling with the in-building connectivity problem. Enterprise faces a parallel challenge, where the stakes are measured in operational continuity and employee productivity. For large enterprises, this connectivity challenge is no longer just an IT issue—it’s a C-suite business problem, with a recent study finding that 70% of CEOs claim their network is slowing business growth.
Wi-Fi is now the backbone for enterprise environments. New network installations have moved to either wireless-first or wireless-only. This move concentrates all operational risk onto the Wi-Fi network, which is why visibility into the end-user experience is absolutely vital. This isn’t just about employee laptops and video calls; it’s about mission-critical systems: logistics scanners in a warehouse, medical devices in a hospital, and point-of-sale systems in retail. When Wi-Fi fails, business stops.
The shift to wireless-first and wireless-only networks has created a set of immense operational hurdles for IT leaders, both for their internal teams and their external partners:
The Scale Challenge: Managing network performance across hundreds or thousands of distributed sites is an immense operational challenge.
The Visibility Challenge: Central IT teams lack visibility into the real user experience at each site.
The Expertise Challenge: IT directors face a constant, unsustainable choice: pull their highest-skilled network engineers into routine troubleshooting, or let frontline problems pile up and drag down productivity.
This leaves IT leaders and their partners grappling with critical, unanswered questions. They are left struggling to ensure a consistent quality of experience across all their locations and service providers. Without objective, real-world wireless throughput and RF performance data, enterprises are forced to guess which locations to prioritize for network upgrades. All the while, they must reckon with the true, and often uncalculated, cost of pulling their senior engineers—both internally and at their partner organizations—away from strategic projects.
Introducing Speedtest Pulse™
This new era of connectivity, rising consumer expectations, and the gap in current solutions is precisely why we built Speedtest Pulse. Pulse solves these fundamental industry challenges at a disruptive and scalable price point.
To bring that vision to life, we at Ookla looked to the unique combination of core capabilities across our business and solutions. We’ve combined the unmatched Wi-Fi expertise of Ekahau—the creators of the market-leading Sidekick 2 Wi-Fi diagnostic device—with the powerful performance and experience validation, and iconic ease-of-use of Speedtest.
We packed decades of network intelligence into a single device that fits in the palm of your hand. The result is Speedtest Pulse, a professional, pocket-sized device and software application built for ISP technicians and Enterprise IT teams who need a simple way to validate network installs, resolve Wi-Fi issues, and guarantee network performance.
For ISPs, Pulse makes every technician their first line of defense against churn. It validates new installs and provides trusted proof to close trouble tickets on the first visit. This results in drastically reduced operational costs, fewer repeat truck rolls, and new sales opportunities.
For IT teams across large enterprises, hospitals, universities, and more, Pulse provides a simple way to validate network health across complex environments without immediately escalating to specialist teams.
We built Pulse from the ground up as a next-generation diagnostic platform, precision-engineered for today’s Wi-Fi-centric environment. Our goal is simple: to provide technicians and IT teams with simple, actionable recommendations that help them quickly identify and fix in-home and enterprise Wi-Fi performance issues—all at a price point that enables fleetwide adoption.
Active Pulse: Validating New Installs and Resolving Trouble Tickets
Active Pulse mode is the technician’s primary tool for guaranteeing performance on every site visit, whether it’s a new installation or a service call. Active Pulse provides one-tap, smartphone-based validation that translates complex network data into clear, actionable recommendations. The workflow is designed to eliminate guesswork and provide definitive proof of performance:
Step 1: Verify the inbound service
Before assessing the customer’s Wi-Fi, the technician’s first step is to isolate the service delivery from the local network. The technician is guided to connect the Speedtest Pulse device directly to the customer’s modem or router using an Ethernet cable.
The technician then runs an initial test to verify the performance of the inbound wired connection, up to 1 Gbps. This establishes a trusted performance baseline, confirming the inbound ISP service is functioning properly before any potential Wi-Fi issues are investigated.
Step 2: Test the wireless network performance
Once the wired service is validated, the technician disconnects the Ethernet cable and uses the Pulse mobile app to verify and/or diagnose the Wi-Fi environment. The technician can verify wireless performance in multiple areas of a home or business.
Using the app, technicians tap to initiate a test that measures key wireless throughput performance metrics using the trusted Speedtest server network. Then, Pulse scans the RF environment to identify common Wi-Fi problems like channel congestion or weak coverage and can analyze client-specific connectivity issues.
Instead of showing raw data, the Speedtest Pulse app provides easy-to-understand results and recommendations.
If an issue is detected, the Pulse software analyzes the network’s KPIs holistically and provides clear instructions for improvement, such as, “Reduce Wi-Fi Contention. Your network is on Channel 36, which is crowded…Action: Change radio setting to channel 149.”
This empowers technicians to diagnose and fix problems on the spot—quickly and efficiently, even for those without Wi-Fi expertise.
Step 4: Provide definitive proof of install performance or issue resolution
After addressing a customer’s issues, the technician can generate a standardized install performance or issue resolution report to provide the proof that consumers today are seeking.
For new installs, this report serves as an internal “Day-One Performance Baseline” and provides data-driven confidence that the network is deployed consistently. It also directly addresses the growing number of customers who expect providers to prove whole-home or whole-business coverage, building customer trust and creating a positive first impression.
For troubleshooting tickets, this report provides definitive, trusted proof that the source of the customer complaint has been pinpointed and the issue has been resolved. It equips the technician with the actionable data needed to close the ticket in minutes, ending costly disputes and validating for the customer that their network is now performing correctly.
A technician can typically complete a full diagnostic workflow—which includes an initial wired test to baseline the inbound service and multiple subsequent Wi-Fi tests in key locations—in approximately 5-10 minutes.
Continuous Pulse: Autonomous Testing Capabilities
When a technician visits a home or business to troubleshoot connectivity, that visit captures only a single moment in time. This leaves ISPs and IT teams struggling with a two-part visibility gap: they lack the real-world data to proactively assess long-term network health, and they struggle to diagnose problems they cannot replicate on site.
This gap has forced the industry into a reactive, “squeaky wheel” support model, where resources are only dispatched after a customer is already frustrated. This drives up costs with repeat truck rolls, leaves tickets unresolved, and damages customer confidence.
Intermittent issues that can’t be reproduced during a site visit are among the toughest challenges ISPs and IT teams face. They drive repeat truck rolls, unresolved tickets, and lead to even more frustrated customers. Historically, there hasn’t been a cost-effective way to capture and resolve these elusive problems.
Speedtest Pulse’s Continuous mode, slated for release in 2026, solves this problem directly. As an affordable leave-behind testing tool, Pulse’s Continuous mode captures performance data over time and provides the conclusive evidence needed to finally close lingering tickets and restore customer confidence. Unlike internal monitoring tools that only show the network’s perspective, Pulse measures performance from the client device’s perspective, providing the trusted real-world data needed to measure service quality. With Continuous Pulse, organizations can:
Leave the device behind: Continuous Pulse is a “leave-behind” mode that operates as a standalone device for long-term, autonomous data collection without requiring a mobile app for ongoing operation.
Capture long-term trends: Continuous mode establishes clear performance baselines and makes it possible to detect degradation before it impacts end users.
Diagnose elusive problems: By running consistent tests over time, Pulse provides the evidence needed to identify and address intermittent problems that traditional tools can miss.
Integrate with existing systems: Data from Continuous Pulse feeds directly into Speedtest Insights™ and can be incorporated into existing network performance and assurance platforms.
Continuous Pulse mode provides the long-term, client-side visibility needed to catch intermittent issues early and cut down on repeat visits. In effect, Speedtest Pulse acts as the canary in the coal mine to identify underperforming networks. For large organizations, this allows IT leaders to stop guessing and deploy their expert resources (like senior engineers and specialized tools) only to the locations where their expertise will have the greatest impact. For customers using Speedtest Certified—our data-driven network certification for properties—Continuous mode will further enrich the certification by providing ongoing performance measurements.
The Power of the Ookla Ecosystem
The launch of Speedtest Pulse marks the start of a new chapter in how organizations approach network troubleshooting and validation. For ISPs, Pulse provides the scalable, easy-to-use, and insight-driven tool they need to fix the broken, two-tiered operational support model currently in place. Pulse empowers every technician to solve top wireless complaints on the first visit and drastically lower operational costs. And for Enterprises, Pulse delivers the outside-in visibility needed to solve scale and expertise challenges, empowering frontline IT personnel to validate network health across distributed sites.
Data from Speedtest Pulse will seamlessly integrate with Speedtest Insights, our centralized network intelligence platform, and/or can be integrated with existing experience and performance management systems. To build a truly comprehensive picture, data from Pulse can be used in conjunction with other products, including:
Speedtest Certified: The data-driven network certification for properties that proves on-site network excellence.
Speedtest: Leverage insights from 11 Million daily consumer-initiated tests.
Downdetector: Real-time problem and outage monitoring for early alerting on service issues.
Speedtest Embedded: Integrate Speedtest functionality into on-premise CPEs and other connected devices for network monitoring.
Speedtest SDK: Integrate Speedtest testing into any mobile application for performance insights.
Speedtest Pulse is the new, crucial piece of our holistic vision to collect and analyze data from all sources in the Ookla data ecosystem. Together, they provide a 360-degree view of the connected experience that is unmatched in the industry. Contact us to learn how Speedtest Pulse can help your organization.
Ookla retains ownership of this article including all of the intellectual property rights, data, content graphs and analysis. This article may not be quoted, reproduced, distributed or published for any commercial purpose without prior consent. Members of the press and others using the findings in this article for non-commercial purposes are welcome to publicly share and link to report information with attribution to Ookla.
Ookla® is a global leader in connectivity intelligence that provides consumers, businesses, and other organizations with data-driven insights to improve networks and connected experiences.
In a highly competitive and mobile-first Philippine market, Globe Telecom, the leading mobile network operator in the country, is committed to delivering superior customer experience everyday. Recognizing the need to champion consistent user experience as key to customer satisfaction, Globe sets an ambitious goal: to establish itself as the Most Consistent Mobile Network in the Philippines.
Knowing that marketing claims must rest on neutral evidence, Globe turned to Ookla’s Speedtest Intelligence®—specifically the Consistency Score, which tracks the share of user tests that meet a minimum threshold of 5 Mbps download and 1 Mbps upload.
Globe boosted speeds and focused on consistent downlink and uplink performance, because as Ookla’s own research confirms, sustained throughput along with typical app requirements is a stronger predictor of user experience than occasional speed peaks. Leveraging Speedtest Intelligence® insights, Globe pinpointed where to upgrade capacity, align cross-functional teams, and guide strategic network investments.
Situation
Globe Telecom set out to differentiate its brand and elevate user experience by becoming the country’s Most Consistent Mobile Network. Ookla confirms that a company’s Consistency Score is a stronger predictor of everyday app performance than peak speed alone, because it shows how often users actually receive ‘good-enough’ speeds for streaming, browsing, and video calls. Guided by these insights, Globe pinpointed upgrade priorities and invested where consistent performance would matter most to customers.
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Check out our full case study to discover how Globe leveraged Ookla data to become the most consistent mobile provider in the Philippines.
Ookla retains ownership of this article including all of the intellectual property rights, data, content graphs and analysis. This article may not be quoted, reproduced, distributed or published for any commercial purpose without prior consent. Members of the press and others using the findings in this article for non-commercial purposes are welcome to publicly share and link to report information with attribution to Ookla.
Ookla® is a global leader in connectivity intelligence that provides consumers, businesses, and other organizations with data-driven insights to improve networks and connected experiences.
Ensuring reliable and competitive broadband performance across Azerbaijan is critical for the country’s digital transformation. Fast, accessible internet plays a central role in education, economic growth, public services, and everyday life. As the national regulatory authority, the Information Communication Technology Agency (ICTA) is tasked with overseeing the performance, fairness, and transparency of the telecommunications market — particularly internet service providers (ISPs).
To effectively monitor this ecosystem, ICTA relies not only on official declarations from providers — such as subscriber counts and regional coverage areas submitted through the Data Collection System (DCS) — but also on independent, real-world testing data from Ookla.
Situation
While ISP-reported figures are foundational for regulatory oversight, there is always a risk of overstated or understated service availability, especially in remote or underserved regions. Such discrepancies can lead to distorted planning, inefficient infrastructure development, and regulatory blind spots.
Moreover, with dozens of ISPs operating at different performance levels, it’s not feasible to demand equal improvements across the board. Regulatory capacity and resources are limited, and not all providers have the same impact on national service quality. A targeted, data-driven strategy is needed to identify which providers can most significantly influence nationwide internet performance.
Under the framework of National ISP Performance Monitoring, ICTA faced four challenges in ensuring fair, efficient, and data-driven oversight of internet service providers:
Monitoring Provider Performance Objectively: ISP-reported data on service quality lacks independent verification. ICTA needed a consistent method to track monthly performance trends across providers, highlight underperformers, and drive QoS improvements across the sector.
Validating Regional Coverage Declarations: ISPs declare their regional subscriber presence via the Data Collection System (DCS). However, without real-world validation, these declarations could misrepresent actual service distribution — especially in rural or underserved areas — distorting planning and policy decisions.
Prioritizing Impactful Improvements: With limited regulatory resources, ICTA needed a tool to identify which ISPs provide poor services, thus, hindering achieving the country’s internet speed objectives. A scalable, simulation-based approach was essential to target high-impact providers rather than applying blanket requirements.
Road-Level Signal Monitoring: Mobile service quality often fluctuates along roads and transport corridors, disrupting calls and data connectivity. Manual drive tests to detect such issues are costly and limited in scope. Using Ookla Cell Analytics, ICTA now monitors signal strength continuously across major roads in Baku, with GPS-tagged results from real users highlighting weak spots and guiding more effective infrastructure planning.
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Check out our full case study to learn more about how ICTA how ICTA uses independent, real-world testing data from Ookla to monitor connectivity in Azerbaijan.
Ookla retains ownership of this article including all of the intellectual property rights, data, content graphs and analysis. This article may not be quoted, reproduced, distributed or published for any commercial purpose without prior consent. Members of the press and others using the findings in this article for non-commercial purposes are welcome to publicly share and link to report information with attribution to Ookla.
Ookla® is a global leader in connectivity intelligence that provides consumers, businesses, and other organizations with data-driven insights to improve networks and connected experiences.
Outages in today’s interconnected digital world are more than just a minor inconvenience; they’re a business-critical problem. From major streaming services to small e-commerce shops, every minute of downtime can mean thousands, if not millions, in lost revenue. These disruptions aren’t isolated incidents, but part of a growing, multi-billion dollar problem that erodes customer trust and threatens a company’s bottom line.
In our latest white paper, we explore the anatomy of modern outages and provide best practices for proactive outage management to avoid the negative effects of service disruptions. You’ll discover how to detect issues faster, understand their full scope, and respond with the kind of transparency that can turn a crisis into a demonstration of competence.
Being Prepared for Crises: Modern applications are complex and can be incredibly fragile. A single transaction can touch an average of 37 different services, and a failure at any connection point can bring down your entire operation. Having a proactive response plan is crucial for managing these complex failures and avoiding confusion during a crisis.
The Cost of an Outage: Outages have significant financial and reputational impacts. They are estimated to cost businesses over $100 billion in lost revenue each year. In addition, poor outage management can amplify negative consequences, leading to customer frustration and churn. According to an Ookla consumer survey, 75% of users will consider switching providers after experiencing a single outage.
Benefits of Downdetector: Downdetector Explorer™ transforms crowdsourced outage data into actionable business intelligence. Organizations gain real-time alerts and insights that help detect and respond to incidents faster, and companies can see exactly which features and services users flag as problematic and resolve issues immediately.
Ookla retains ownership of this article including all of the intellectual property rights, data, content graphs and analysis. This article may not be quoted, reproduced, distributed or published for any commercial purpose without prior consent. Members of the press and others using the findings in this article for non-commercial purposes are welcome to publicly share and link to report information with attribution to Ookla.
Ookla® is a global leader in connectivity intelligence that provides consumers, businesses, and other organizations with data-driven insights to improve networks and connected experiences.
Entering a market long dominated by two established mobile providers, DITO faced an uphill climb in building brand recognition and growing its subscriber base. With a commercial launch in 2021, the company set an ambitious goal: to connect every Filipino to the people, places, and things that matter most—through reliable, high-speed mobile service and a fresh, customer-first approach.
That mission quickly gained traction. DITO’s dedication to service and innovation earned the company more than 13 million subscribers in just three years. But building trust in such a competitive market takes more than scale. It takes proof.
In 2023 and 2024, DITO received a major endorsement of its network quality and customer satisfaction when it was named the #1 Rated Mobile Network in the Philippines by Ookla® three consecutive times. The Speedtest Award™, based on real user feedback from Speedtest® Intelligence data, became a cornerstone of DITO’s marketing strategy, offering trusted, third-party validation of its brand promise.
Situation
Launching in 2021, DITO entered a saturated and highly competitive mobile market in the Philippines. With entrenched competitors and decades of consumer loyalty behind them, the legacy operators had a clear advantage. DITO, in contrast, needed to prove itself from the ground up: it had to build brand awareness, earn trust, and deliver on the promise of a better mobile experience.
DITO expanded rapidly, reaching over 13 million subscribers by 2024. That growth was fueled by aggressive network investments, expanded 4G and 5G availability, and a strong focus on customer-centric service.
As DITO gained momentum, established competitors also ramped up their efforts, making it even more important for DITO to find fresh ways to differentiate its brand. It needed a campaign that blended credibility with emotional resonance—one that would validate its achievements while deepening brand affinity. That’s where the Speedtest Award came into the picture.
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Check out our full case study to learn more about DITO’s “Sa Puso Ko” campaign to celebrate its Speedtest Award as the #1 Rated Mobile Network in the Philippines.
Ookla retains ownership of this article including all of the intellectual property rights, data, content graphs and analysis. This article may not be quoted, reproduced, distributed or published for any commercial purpose without prior consent. Members of the press and others using the findings in this article for non-commercial purposes are welcome to publicly share and link to report information with attribution to Ookla.
Ookla® is a global leader in connectivity intelligence that provides consumers, businesses, and other organizations with data-driven insights to improve networks and connected experiences.
For serious gamers, a stable, high-speed internet connection is essential for competitive gameplay, seamless live streaming, and real-time server communication. Intel provides many of the building blocks for gamers, making reliable connectivity a core part of the gaming experience.
To give gamers deeper insight into the quality of their internet connection and help them avoid lag, connection drops, or poor streaming quality, Intel integrates Speedtest Custom™ from Ookla into its Intel® Killer™ Performance Suite, providing gamers with a reliable way to measure, validate, and troubleshoot their connectivity in real time during gameplay, when every millisecond matters.
Situation
Gaming today isn’t just about graphics or processing power; it’s about the overall performance of your connection. While download and upload speeds remain critical for gaming—especially for game updates, patches, and streaming—latency and jitter are also key metrics that directly impact both casual and competitive gaming experiences. High levels of either often result in delayed reactions, missed targets, and frustrated gamers.
Live streaming adds another layer of complexity, with platforms like Twitch and YouTube Gaming requiring substantial upload bandwidth to maintain high bitrates and smooth frame rates. Meanwhile, the typical gaming household rarely does just one thing at a time. Users increasingly multitask across bandwidth-intensive activities—gaming while streaming video, using voice chat, or sharing files—creating network congestion that can impact performance.
Without immediate visibility into what’s happening on their network, gamers are often left guessing when performance issues arise during critical moments.
Download the full case study
Check out our full case study to discover how intel integrates Ookla’s Speedtest Custom into Intel Killer to reduce lag, manage bandwidth, and deliver peak gaming performance.
Ookla retains ownership of this article including all of the intellectual property rights, data, content graphs and analysis. This article may not be quoted, reproduced, distributed or published for any commercial purpose without prior consent. Members of the press and others using the findings in this article for non-commercial purposes are welcome to publicly share and link to report information with attribution to Ookla.
Ookla® is a global leader in connectivity intelligence that provides consumers, businesses, and other organizations with data-driven insights to improve networks and connected experiences.
The Speedtest app is designed to give you the power to test and troubleshoot your internet connection, all in one place. Over the past year, we’ve been working on enhancements to provide you with even more insights into your results. Here’s a look at the latest features that make understanding your internet experience easier than ever.
Troubleshoot Issues Faster with Downdetector Favorites
Ever wonder if slow speeds are because of your internet or the website you’re trying to access? Downdetector is directly integrated into the Speedtest app, providing you with an immediate way to check for widespread service outages. With the ability to track up to 20 of your favorite services, you can easily monitor the platforms you rely on most.
Take a Speedtest, then check Downdetector to see if the service you’re trying to access is experiencing a widespread issue.
Get clarity on whether a problem lies with your personal connection or a larger service disruption.
Understand Your Real-World Performance with Experience Ratings
With our new Experience Ratings, you can see how your Speedtest results translate into real-world performance. This new feature provides ratings based on your Speedtest results for: Web Browsing, Video Streaming, Online Gaming, and Video Calling.
Gain immediate insights on how your connection truly performs for the things you do most online, helping you optimize your setup for the best possible experience.
Speedtest ISP Finder: Compare Your Speeds
Want to see if your current internet plan is truly right for you? The new Compare Your Speeds feature draws insights directly from our Speedtest ISP Finder to help you find the best internet providers across the United States. After taking a Speedtest, scroll down to find the new feature and:
See how your network’s results compare with other ISPs in your area.
Find out if issues are due to your internet plan or if there is a potential internal network or hardware problem.
Equip yourself with the data to find the best plan that’s truly right for you in your area.
Ready to explore these new features? Update your Speedtest app today and take control of your internet experience!
Ookla retains ownership of this article including all of the intellectual property rights, data, content graphs and analysis. This article may not be quoted, reproduced, distributed or published for any commercial purpose without prior consent. Members of the press and others using the findings in this article for non-commercial purposes are welcome to publicly share and link to report information with attribution to Ookla.
Ookla® is a global leader in connectivity intelligence that provides consumers, businesses, and other organizations with data-driven insights to improve networks and connected experiences.
A major outage, with over 1.4 million Downdetector user reports globally, across more than 50 online services, reinforces the need for more robust infrastructure given multiple dependent online services.
Downdetector outage reports highlights issues with Google Cloud
At approximately 17:56 UTC on June 12, 2025, Google Cloud entered an “Outage” state on Downdetector, as indicated by a sharp increase in user reports. Downdetector user reported data shows a rapid uptick in outage reports for Google Cloud, peaking at 6.30pm UTC, followed by a long tail of reports as users continued to experience problems with the service. This immediately affected several critical Google services, including Google Drive, Maps, Meet, Nest, Gemini, and YouTube itself.
Google Cloud Outage Summary
Downdetector® | June 12, 2025 | Global Reports
Over 1.4 million user outage reports globally
Concurrently, numerous external platforms that publicly acknowledge their reliance on Google Cloud infrastructure—notably Spotify, Snapchat, Rocket League, and OpenAI—also reported significant disruptions. The widespread nature of cloud infrastructure dependencies meant that a multitude of other online services, even those without a public direct link to Google Cloud, experienced indirect operational impacts.
Minutes later, at 18:00 UTC, Cloudflare also experienced a related outage. Cloudflare subsequently confirmed this disruption was a direct result of an issue with a “third-party cloud provider.” This directly affected major platforms such as Discord and Twitch, both of which publicly utilize Cloudflare’s infrastructure. A broad array of additional services dependent on Cloudflare were similarly impacted across their respective operations.
Over the course of the outage, Downdetector amassed over 1.4 million user reports globally, across more than 50 online services that the platform tracks. Of these 1.4 million, in excess of 800,000 were reported in the U.S. alone.
Downstream Impact – Services Impacted by Google Cloud Outage
Downdetector® | June 12, 2025 | Global Reports
The cascading effect of these outages unfortunately led to considerable confusion among users of communication service providers globally. Many users mistakenly attributed the service interruptions to their mobile or broadband providers, given that access to the affected online services was routed through their respective networks. All three national carriers in the U.S. for example, saw a substantial increase in user reports.
Both Google Cloud and Cloudflare services were largely restored to normal operational status by approximately 20:30 UTC. However, consistent with patterns observed during major service disruptions, user reports on Downdetector continued for a period thereafter.
For businesses, Downdetector provides access to dashboards that deliver early alerts, enable outage correlation, and allow for direct communication with users, ensuring a proactive approach to incident management. Learn how you can leverage Downdetector to be better prepared for outages, or reach out to schedule a demo.
Ookla retains ownership of this article including all of the intellectual property rights, data, content graphs and analysis. This article may not be quoted, reproduced, distributed or published for any commercial purpose without prior consent. Members of the press and others using the findings in this article for non-commercial purposes are welcome to publicly share and link to report information with attribution to Ookla.
Ookla® is a global leader in connectivity intelligence that provides consumers, businesses, and other organizations with data-driven insights to improve networks and connected experiences.
Downdetector is starting 2025 strong with major enhancements aimed at expanding our global reach and improving usability for our Downdetector users and Downdetector Explorer customers. Here’s a look at some of the latest updates that make it easier than ever to monitor and track service disruptions worldwide.
Expanding Downdetector’s Global Coverage
As part of our commitment to providing real-time service insights across the globe, we’ve launched 14 new Downdetector domains in key markets. These new domains allow users to track and report issues with local services—including telecommunications, banking, and other essential industries.
With these additions, Downdetector now operates in 64 countries, empowering users all around the world to stay informed about outages that matter to them.
To improve the monitoring experience for Downdetector Explorer customers, we’ve launched a revamped Alerts Manager. This feature allows users to seamlessly integrate Downdetector with observability tools like Datadog, Slack, and OpsGenie, delivering real-time outage alerts directly into existing workflows.
By connecting Downdetector data to the tools teams already use, organizations can automate alerting, streamline communication, and accelerate incident response.
Here’s a look at what a Downdetector alert looks like in Slack:
With the New Alerts Manager, Explorer users can:
Customize alert settings with precise service and region filters, ensuring you receive only the most relevant notifications
Improve team collaboration with real-time notifications sent to the right groups via Slack, OpsGenie, or email
Enhance incident response times by integrating directly with observability tools for faster, data-driven insights
Multi-Service Alerts
As part of the expansion to the alerts management system, we’ve also introduced Multi-Service Alerts! This powerful new capability enables teams to detect outages across multiple services.
Multi-Service Alerts allow users to trigger notifications when two or more monitored services enter a critical state at the same time. This is especially useful for:
Identifying shared infrastructure issues (e.g., when multiple ISPs or cloud providers go down)
Monitoring your competitive landscape (e.g., when your service and a competitor are both impacted)
Detecting ecosystem-wide disruptions faster and with more context
Interested in accessing data from our new domains or seeing the new alerts manager in action? Contact us today to learn more!
Ookla retains ownership of this article including all of the intellectual property rights, data, content graphs and analysis. This article may not be quoted, reproduced, distributed or published for any commercial purpose without prior consent. Members of the press and others using the findings in this article for non-commercial purposes are welcome to publicly share and link to report information with attribution to Ookla.
Ookla® is a global leader in connectivity intelligence that provides consumers, businesses, and other organizations with data-driven insights to improve networks and connected experiences.
