Optimum Internet Outage Ends in West Virginia After Network Damage
Optimum said service returned to West Virginia customers on November 12, 2026, after damage to a third party's network cut internet access the previous evening. Some areas in Ohio were also affected. Separately, Microsoft's Outlook email service suffered a large outage across North America.
Optimum said it restored service to customers in West Virginia on November 12, 2026, ending an internet outage caused by damage to a third party's network that began the previous evening.
The company posted the update at 8:41 a.m. on November 12. It said the damage hit a network that supports Optimum services.
"While the circumstances were outside of Optimum's control, we understand the impact any service interruption has on our customers," the company said. It added that it worked closely with the third-party provider to restore service "as quickly and safely as possible."
Customers across many parts of West Virginia lost service on November 11, 2026, including the Mid-Ohio Valley. According to Optimum's live outage tracker, reports began around 5:30 p.m.
An Optimum spokesperson attributed the disruption soon after to "a cut to their infrastructure caused by a third party." The company said it was working with that provider as crews made repairs.
Optimum gave no timeframe for restoration while repairs continued. Its outage map also showed some small areas of Belpre and Marietta, Ohio, with internet disruption.
The company apologized for the inconvenience and thanked customers for their patience.
Separately, Microsoft's Outlook email service suffered a massive outage affecting users across North America and potentially other regions.
Microsoft's 365 Status account on X posted at 12:54 p.m. ET that it was investigating reports of users having trouble reaching Exchange Online mailboxes in the Americas. Both individual and enterprise users had trouble logging in.
The outage also hit Microsoft Teams, the Microsoft 365 productivity suite and cloud storage, the Copilot 365 AI service and SharePoint Online.
Monitoring platform Downdetector showed user reports spiking at about 12:39 p.m. ET. By 1:09 p.m. ET, it had logged more than 129,000 error reports.
At 1:35 p.m. ET, Microsoft said it had determined that "a portion of infrastructure is experiencing elevated load across multiple regions." The company said it had begun redistributing connection traffic across its wider worldwide infrastructure to balance the load.
Microsoft's Service Health Status page said teams were reviewing an unexpected increase in a specific type of service traffic to see whether it contributed to the load.
