Skype outage hits users worldwide
Millions of Skype Internet phone users worldwide couldn't make calls — or were dropped in mid-conversation — because of a network connection failure that began about 9 a.m. Wednesday PST.
It marked the second time this year that the popular, low-cost calling service was hit with a major outage, and this one was more widespread than the two-day disruption in 2007.
"For a communications system this large to go down, it's almost unheard of," said Charles S. Golvin, a Forrester Research analyst. "Usually when phone lines are disrupted, the blackout is confined to a specific geographical area. This is worldwide."
Indeed. In the past, there have been network outages to auction site EBay and social networks Facebook and Twitter, but the impact wasn't as great, Golvin said.
"With those sort of disruptions, people have alternatives or they can wait it out," he said. "But with something like this — and you need to communicate with someone — it's far more significant."
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-skype-20101223,0,2778742.story
