For the second time in less than a week, computer problems at America Online Inc. on Monday prevented millions of users from sending or receiving electronic mail.
The brownout stemmed from problems in an AOL computer that directs the flow of messages across the company's electronic network. Some people also were unable to log on for a short period of time.AOL technicians were upgrading the network for more users when the system went down at 5:15 a.m. MST, AOL spokesman Rich D'Amato said. Full service was restored by early afternoon, and the company said no e-mail was lost.
AOL has 9 million subscribers who exchange up to 20 million e-mails each day.
Businesses that rely on the service were forced to find creative ways around the disruption.
Denise Walpole, a New York public-relations executive, said she was unable to exchange e-mail for four hours in the morning and instead sent e-mail using an Internet service provider.
"It was a minor inconvenience," Walpole said, noting her business has accounts with several Internet service providers for these types of disruptions.
Sacha Wallace, a public-relations executive in Los Gatos, Calif. who has been an AOL member for four years, said she was unable to log onto the system in the morning and "ended up having to fax people information."
The online snag was the latest to emerge from a sharp increase in AOL subscribers since the online service early this year began offering unlimited online usage for $19.95 a month.
AOL, based in Dulles, Va., has spent hundreds of millions of dollars to buy new modems and computers to handle the extra strain on its network. The current e-mail traffic is quadruple the load early this year.
In the latest outage, AOL said subscribers were without the ability to send or receive e-mail for three hours until 10:15 a.m., and without the ability to send e-mail until about 1 p.m.