Cogent, which runs one of the major Internet backbone networks that handles long-haul Web traffic, is currently down after its fiber network was somehow cut in two different locations. A look at Keynote's Internet Health Report site indicates serious problems across the board for Cogent. At the moment, even Cogent's homepage appears to be down from my location in Northern Virginia, serving up nothing more than a 404 File not Found Error.

I spoke with Tecora Washington from Cogent. She confirmed that there were two fiber cuts in the past 12 hours, one that happened in New Orleans and a separate one in Washington, D.C. "This has effectively isolated the Southeast portion of Cogent's network. We are still fixing it, but we have no estimated time of completion at this point."

This is creating some serious regional Internet traffic problems for some Internet service providers (ISPs), especially Comcast, according to individuals I spoke with today in Minnesota and in Pennsylvania. According to a thread over at Nanog, the outage is affecting ISPs from New York to Washington, D.C., and areas in the Southeast. The Internet Storm Center also is following this development. It is not clear when this problem will be fixed.