Authors: Dikyton & IODA

In October and November 2024, Cuba experienced two major nationwide blackouts that impacted the daily lives of its citizens.

Earlier this month, Cuba experienced its most recent Internet outage, with IODA data showing the effects of another nationwide blackout. According to media reports, Hurricane Rafael knocked out power, damaged telecommunications infrastructure, and disrupted Internet connectivity across Cuba. The hurricane hit the island on Wednesday, November 6, and only partial Internet was restored on Friday, November 8.

Three weeks earlier, on Friday, October 18, Cuba experienced blackouts due to a failure of the energy system at the national level. Officials blamed ailing infrastructure, rising demand and a lack of fuel for the outages. Cuba is powered by eight oil-fired thermoelectric plants that have become hard to maintain due to rising inflation and a shortage of hard-to-obtain fuel.

Media reports say the government called the incident an “energy emergency” and introduced energy-saving measures, such as closing schools, government offices, and “non-essential” businesses down from Friday, October 18, at midday. Citizens were also warned against protesting the blackouts.

Two days later, power was initially restored but then lost again. Cuba’s blackouts also coincided with the arrival of Hurricane Oscar on Sunday, October 20, adding to the urgency of restoring power across the island. The storm, which dissipated on Tuesday, October 22, resulted in eight deaths, officially. Due to total outage, people living in the Eastern side of the country had little to no knowledge of Hurricane Oscar’s arrival. Power returned to functionality, followed by Internet connectivity being restored to pre-blackout levels by the evening of Tuesday, October 22.

IODA, the Internet Outage Detection and Analysis project led by Internet measurement researchers at Georgia Tech’s Internet Intelligence Lab, shows data on Internet outages in Cuba impacted by the country-wide outage. The IODA project’s data measures the connectivity of Internet infrastructure.

IODA data is provided alongside a short analysis below.

Above is a graph showing Cuba’s October and November 2024 Internet outages. According to Active Probing signals, Internet connectivity dropped from 97% on Friday, October 18, to as low as 78% on Sunday, October 20. On Wednesday, October 23, Internet connectivity returned, with Active Probing signals reaching above 97% that evening.

On Wednesday, November 6, Active Probing signals on IODA dropped from their usual 99% to as low as 78%. On Friday, November 8, those signals increased to 92%.

This isn’t the first time Cubans have experienced Internet connectivity issues. The island also faced blackouts in March 2024. The most memorable Internet shutdown happened in July 2021 due to protests against the government over a shortage of food and medicine and the government’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.

For media covering this story, please contact Amanda Meng, Zachary Bischof, or Alberto Dainotti via ioda-info@cc.gatech.edu for comments and analysis.

About IODA

IODA monitors the Internet in near-realtime to identify Internet outages affecting countries, subnational regions, and networks. Visit IODA for more information.