Zoom Is Down Right Now At The Worst Possible Time For Students And Workers

Zoom
Given the COVID-19 pandemic that is waging across the world, particularly in the United States, virtual learning (and working) has become a big part of our daily lives. And one of the most-used teleconferencing solutions for students learning from home is Zoom, which allows them to visually connect with teachers and classmates, allowing for some semblance of normalcy.

However, today has been disastrous as Zoom is down across much of the eastern seaboard of the and across various other large cities across the United States. Many school systems have fully integrated Zoom into their lesson plans, so it’s understandable that such an outage would kill those plans – at least for this morning.

downdetector zoom
Downdetector outage map for Zoom

What’s even more infuriating – especially for parents that are also trying to come to grips with virtual learning – is that this outage is occurring on the first day of classes for many school age children. While popular outage tracking site Downdetector is logging reports from all across the United States with respect to the outage, Zoom after hours of silence has also finally posted to Twitter acknowledging the issues:

With that being said, this is one of perils of going with virtual learning, especially when school systems are reliant on a third-party like Zoom to handle the heavy lifting with classwork and social interactions. And that’s not even counting the vast number of businesses that are affected at the moment who are relying on Zoom to conduct operations around the globe.

If there’s any good news for students, however, it’s the Google Meet and Microsoft Teams appear to be operating normally at this time.

Brandon Hill

Brandon Hill

Brandon received his first PC, an IBM Aptiva 310, in 1994 and hasn’t looked back since. He cut his teeth on computer building/repair working at a mom and pop computer shop as a plucky teen in the mid 90s and went on to join AnandTech as the Senior News Editor in 1999. Brandon would later help to form DailyTech where he served as Editor-in-Chief from 2008 until 2014. Brandon is a tech geek at heart, and family members always know where to turn when they need free tech support. When he isn’t writing about the tech hardware or studying up on the latest in mobile gadgets, you’ll find him browsing forums that cater to his long-running passion: automobiles.

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