internet outage

(Updated at 9:40 a.m.) Arlington Public Schools students and staff were unable to connect to the wireless network at schools this morning.

The system-wide outage impacted in-person learning, as well as distance learning for students whose teachers were unable to connect their devices at school.

In a School Talk email to families, APS said it was working to fix the technical difficulties.

The APS wireless network is unavailable at all school sites this morning. This impacts all in-person staff and students who use wireless devices to access APS network services.

Distance Learning students will not be affected unless their teacher is unable to connect their devices. We are working to resolve the issue. Once the problem has been resolved, we will notify staff and students.

We apologize for the inconvenience.

The Department of Information Services

By 9:20 a.m., the issue was resolved, APS said.

“The APS wireless network service inside APS buildings has been restored,” said a subsequent School Talk email. “Thank you for your patience while we worked to resolved the issue.

A widespread East Coast internet outage may cause delays for teachers and students accessing Arlington Public Schools systems during remote learning.

“Some users may be experiencing issues with their internet, or applications such as Canvas, Google Classroom or Teams,” APS spokesman Frank Bellavia tells ARLnow.

In an email to families, the school system said that those accessing services through MyAccess@APS may experience delays, but those delays will vary by user.

A reported fiber optic cable cut in Brooklyn is at least one factor causing internet-related problems up and down the East Coast today.

“It’s not clear if that issue is responsible for the entire outage,” the Associated Press reported. “The internet service provider didn’t have any estimate when the problem spot would be fixed.”

“The outage is affecting major internet and cloud providers as well as major sites such as Google and Facebook,” the AP added.

More from Arlington Public Schools:

The Department of Information Services is sending the message to families to notify you that we have become aware of an Internet outage that is affecting most major Internet providers on the east coast because of a fiber cut in New York. This outage is affecting Verizon, Comcast and others that provide Internet service to staff and students in our area.

This outage may cause delays in applications and services accessed via MyAccess@APS and will be different for each user.

We will continue to monitor the outage and notify you with any pertinent information that becomes available.

Please be advised that a widespread, multiple-provider, east coast internet service outage may directly impact students' and teachers' ability to access a variety of systems. @APSVirginia Information Services is aware of the situation. pic.twitter.com/XTjkkjjELo

— Discovery APS (@DiscoveryAPS) January 26, 2021