Skype says sorry for massive outage

San Francisco - Millions of Skype users around the world were left incommunicado Wednesday when the popular internet telephony system was disrupted by a massive glitch.

Skype issued an apology for the outage, which left millions of people unable to log onto the service or connect to any of their contacts. Skype said that the problem appeared to originate in the service's peer-to-peer system, in which some users' computers are used as "supernodes" to help the application connect with users.

"Under normal circumstances, there are a large number of supernodes available. Unfortunately, today, many of them were taken offline by a problem affecting some versions of Skype," the company said in a web posting.

"Our engineers are creating new 'mega-supernodes' as fast as theycan, which should gradually return things to normal. This may take a few hours, and we sincerely apologize for the disruption to your conversations."

Skype prides itself on the robustness of its network, with its last major outage in 2007. But with the company increasingly positioning itself as a corporate communications tool, Wednesday's snafu could be damaging.

"Skype is one of the key applications of the modern web," said Om Malik of the technology blog GigaOm. "If I am a big business, I would be extremely cautious about adopting Skype for business, especially in light of this current outage."

-- The Nation 2010-12-23

Mine is still down ATT

mine been down all morning

mine been down all morning

15:59...it's back

15:59...it's back

Lucky you. Still off here in Phuket.

I wonder how we survived 30 years ago and before with only snail mail, telegrammes, land phones and public telephone boxes for communication?

Now just because Skype which is only one method out of hundreds as a means of on line communication is down for only a few hours, it`s considered as an International disaster.

What sort of new generation people have we produced, that they're whole lives revolve around a box with a keyboard and mobile phones?

SAD, SAD, SAD.

Edited December 23, 201015 yr by Beetlejuice

I wonder how we survived 30 years ago and before with only snail mail, telegrammes, land phones and public telephone boxes for communication?

Now just because Skype which is only one method out of hundreds as a means of on line communication is down for only a few hours, it`s considered as an International disaster.

What sort of new generation people have we produced, that they're whole lives revolve around a box with a keyboard and mobile phones?

SAD, SAD, SAD.

I can't stop laughing!!! did you bang this message out via smoke signals?

I wonder how we survived 30 years ago and before with only snail mail, telegrammes, land phones and public telephone boxes for communication?

Now just because Skype which is only one method out of hundreds as a means of on line communication is down for only a few hours, it`s considered as an International disaster.

What sort of new generation people have we produced, that they're whole lives revolve around a box with a keyboard and mobile phones?

SAD, SAD, SAD.

... he said via keyboard on an internet forum

I'm sure he's just trying sarcasm....

15:59...it's back

Mine isn't even installed.

I wonder how we survived 30 years ago and before with only snail mail, telegrammes, land phones and public telephone boxes for communication?

Now just because Skype which is only one method out of hundreds as a means of on line communication is down for only a few hours, it`s considered as an International disaster.

What sort of new generation people have we produced, that they're whole lives revolve around a box with a keyboard and mobile phones?

SAD, SAD, SAD.

I can't stop laughing!!! did you bang this message out via smoke signals?

Well, just think about it.

A persons computer, mobile phone or site communication is down and they can`t function.

What a joke.

Well, just think about it.

A persons computer, mobile phone or site communication is down and they can`t function.

What a joke.

You may find it shocking, but some of us actually use these new-fangled computer things for business.

I think looking at stats - 3 years back it used to average about 5m on line at any one time and now it is 12M. That takes some serious investment to be able to handle. I'll stay with them, my phone bills are less than 10% of my previous telco.

I wonder how we survived 30 years ago and before with only snail mail, telegrammes, land phones and public telephone boxes for communication?

Now just because Skype which is only one method out of hundreds as a means of on line communication is down for only a few hours, it`s considered as an International disaster.

What sort of new generation people have we produced, that they're whole lives revolve around a box with a keyboard and mobile phones?

SAD, SAD, SAD.

You're right,the more technology we humans have,the more dependent we are and the less able we are to do things ourselves.

Convenience is a wonderful thing in terms of efficiency, but it debases a lot of life's experiences-

Home grown produce,so superior in taste to factory produce.

I've never seen a film of a book that was better than the book.

The excitement of getting a letter from someone far away, the familiar handwriting, the perhaps exotic stamp, email's great but it doesn't have that romance.

LPs with their artwork and scratched-over-time records, something to treasure and hold, CDs just don't have that individuality.

And the word 'patience' is disappearing from the world.