Apparently caused by a fire, caused by homeless man.

wbztv.com – Fire Shuts Down Longfellow Bridge For Hours

Yet another reason not to smoke!

Of course, the very idea of the Internet is based on the idea that even if some connections don’t work, the rest of the system can work. Even though the downtime happened in a hub of Internet activity and Internet2 is an important part of the overall network, the problem was still circumscribed.

Still, it does sound weird that Internet2 connections should be so susceptible to disruption. One would think that all care would be taken to make sure that Cambridge and Boston are constantly connected through many routes, in case some connections drops. After all, it’s a lot of lost productivity for a fairly localised issue.

Of course, I know nothing of network engineering. It just seems strange to me.