Internet outage affects Connecticut’s legislative meetings, governor’s office

A tripped electrical breaker sparked a widespread internet outage affecting Connecticut state agencies and the legislature on Tuesday, forcing lawmakers to delay hearings and committee meetings while officials worked to resolve the issue.

Both the General Assembly's website and CT-N, the network that streams legislative and other government proceedings, were either offline or bogged down by slow speeds for several hours on Tuesday, with the issue lasting well into the afternoon. Staff in Gov. Ned Lamont's office were also impacted by the outage, a spokeswoman said.

House Speaker Matt Ritter said in a text message that the outage delayed meetings of the Banking, Housing and Children's committees until at least mid-afternoon. A spokesman for Senate Democrats said that the Appropriations and Human Services committees were also delaying their meetings.

Neither the House nor the Senate had been scheduled to hold floor proceedings on Tuesday, their fist working day back from the Presidents' Day holiday.

In an email to lawmakers and staff on Tuesday, the General Assembly's ITS Technology and Support Manager Jay Aronne said that an issue with the state's Bureau of Information and Technology Services — which provides internet access to the Capitol and other government agencies — was causing “periodic slowness” in the General Assembly's Internet, remote networks and email connections.

“BITS is currently working to resolve the issue,” Aronne said in the email. “We will keep you updated as information becomes available.”

The Department of Administrative Services, which operates BITS, attributed the issue to a tripped electrical breaker at a state data center, which in turn caused an “unexpected widespread, ongoing outage,” according to DAS spokesman Jesse Imse.

“Anyone operating on the state network has been impacted by slow or impaired connection,” Imse said in an emailed statement around 2 p.m., adding that staff were hoping to resolve the issue within an hour.

The outage did not appear to impact the state's Judicial Branch services on Tuesday, according to spokeswoman Rhonda Herbert.

Ned Gerard/Hearst Connecticut Media Legislative hearings at the Capitol were delayed on Tuesday due to internet connectivity problems.