In the past 2 days, I am having horrific problems with both America Online and my private ISP server. AOL completely punts me about every 60 seconds, particularly in the afternoon around 4 MST, while my private server keeps rejecting my (long) established passwords and other oddities. I am having these problems from all 3 of my office locations, so I am unsure it it is a phone line issue, but it seems unlikely!

I didn't think too much about it until some other folks mentioned to me that they were having similar problems. Could it be that the invincible AOL is actually wobbling under the Y2K strain?

Please add here if you are having similar ISP and AOL problems! Let's keep track of what happens.

-- Jennifer Bunker (jen@bunkergroup.com), December 29, 1999

Answers

Jennifer,

My son works for a group which does tech support for Compuserve, AOL and Gateway. Compuserve and AOL use the same software by the way (and are now the same company). He says they are EXPECTED to have rollover problems and have been warned that they will be inundated with problems on the AOL and Compuserve side. Good luck !

-- Rob (maxovrdrv51@hotmail.com), December 29, 1999.

I too have been having problems tonight (12/29), sometimes when I go to different sites I get 'transfer interrupted' messages. There are no other people in the house picking up the phone. I end up having to back out of my browser and start over. This hasn't happened before. Just read on OneLIST that fox news was saying that the phone companies are having glitches all over the world, wonder if this is part of it?

-- Sammie (sammiex0@yahoo.com), December 30, 1999.

Thanks for bringing this up. I have a byoa (bring your own access) AOL account that I access from my home business ISP because most of my friends use the aol e-mail address. It has been really flaky the last couple of days unless it is strange off hours.

I'd hate to think that we are going to have to see what is happening via CNN because the telephony/isp infrastructure went south.

-- Nancy (wellsnl@hotmail.com), December 30, 1999.

I, too, keep having trouble. I had to reconnect about 4 times yesterday, and another 2-3 last night. Is it volume or Y2K?

-- Mia (jnmpow@flash.net), December 30, 1999.

AT&T working fine 3pm Dec 31 Indianapolis, IN Dump AOL and get an ISP that is rated #1!!

-- Bill Murray (murray500@att.net), December 31, 1999.

I have a local ISP in NJ and have had no problems. Remember that most ISP's are dependent on other upline providers (backbone) to reach the Internet. If these major players have problems, many local and regional ISP's will also have various types of problems.

Jan

-- Jan Rosenstreich (janros@excite.com), December 31, 1999.

For the last five days or so, my particular POP for Concentric.net has been problematic trying to connect. I suspect this is due to the predictable peak in Internet traffic. Connections may be of dubious quality for another day or so until the public interest in Y2K news and probably download updates lessens. Once the connection gets made, performance has been fine.

My AOL access has been fine. Probably because we have many POPs for AOL in my area.

-- Tim McCully (2000fact@concentric.net), January 01, 2000.

UPDATE: LOL at the AOL dump! (I keep it for the kids).

I am noticing less problems now (January 2, 2000) and I am tempted to attribute my previous problems to the high volume of internet usage as we approached the millenium. However, I would encourage our GICC analysts to look specifically into AOL vulnerabilites and keep us posted.

-- Jennifer Bunker (Salt Lake City, Utah) (jen@bunkergroup.com), January 02, 2000.