Network Problems Cause AOL IM Outage

[BigBlueBall News]

Associate Press

May 22, 2001

Network problems Tuesday prevented some Internet users from reaching America Online’s Instant Messenger, the most widely used service for sending short messages instantly to friends and colleagues online.



Nicholas Graham, an AOL spokesman, could not say how many users were affected, but he described it as ``a small number.’’ Others, he said, were able to log on normally.



No other AOL services were affected, he said.



Still, the Instant Messenger outage was noticable. Graham said the number of messages exchanged was slightly below normal during the morning hours.



The problems were fixed by early afternoon. Graham said one Internet provider under contract with AOL had connection trouble. The company uses several outside companies to let users connect with computers that run Instant Messenger and other services.

http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20010522/tc/instant_messenger_outage_1.html