So when my website and server monitoring system started throwing alerts about excessive ping and failed uptime checks despite my servers being a mix of AWS, Hetzner, local and home , I went to investigate what was wrong with my servers, and found them to be running fine. Looking deeper I went to check on the undersea cable status and learned that all the backhauls connecting Perth to the outside world were either down or degraded.

So if you're experiencing high ping and slow loading times, there's yer problem