Skype outage affects tens of millions

December 22, 2010 3:43 PM
Dean Takahashi

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July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Skype suffered a widespread and lengthy outage today with its Internet calling service.

The company said in a post that problems with the Skype network’s “supernodes” are responsible and could take hours more to fix. Skype apologized to users. But the lesson is clear, as GigaOm noted. If you rely as a business on cloud-based communications tools, it pays to have a backup.

Skype spokesman Peter Parkes said, “Skype isn’t a network like a conventional phone or IM network. It relies on millions of individual connections between computers and phones to keep things up and running.” That is, Skype uses a peer-to-peer model in order to connect callers.

The supernodes are like phone directories for Skype, and a number of them failed today. As we speak, Skype isn’t loading for me right now. Lots of people are affected. Skype accounts for 0.57 percent of all Internet traffic. For the first six months of 2010, Skype logged 88.4 billion minutes of Skype-to-Skype calls.

[update: Skype said in a tweet that it is now returning to normal]

[image credit: ReadWriteWeb]

http://garyfales.com/ nevada trust

i knew it. i told my friends some years ago that skype wasn't reliable. this is just the beginning of skype's problems, unfortunately. because it's unregulated, there are governments seeking to abolish skype entirely. i give the company about 1 year before it folds.
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_U5JETQBIKQ2ZDVTMNJE47GCMNE TroyL

I don't see how Skype will fail in a year. Skype is going to have technical issues just like everything and everyone else does. If people understood how complex it is for Skype to stay up and running, they would see that it is amazing that they haven't had problems before. Nothing is immune to experiencing technical problems. If the opposite were true, I wouldn't be going to college to be a Network Administrator.As for Skype going under; that is unlikely. What is likely is they will find ways to start charging higher fees for their services to the millions of Skype users. They will eventually have to do this.
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_LW62JJYQTSJIYWC6P4V7X3HZLQ Lilly Von Schtupp

“i knew it. i told my friends some years ago that skype wasn't reliable. this is just the beginning of skype's problems, unfortunately. because it's unregulated, there are governments seeking to abolish skype entirely. i give the company about 1 year before it folds.”You don't have a clue what you're talking about.
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_U5JETQBIKQ2ZDVTMNJE47GCMNE TroyL

Actually, I do know what I am talking about. In a year, Skype will still be here, and whoever uses it will be paying more than they are now.
http://twitter.com/tabbynormal Abby Normal

T writes, “As we speak, Skype isn’t loading for me right now.” I wish he included a time, as well as a date, so I could compare my own problems with Skype today with his. At 8:22pm EST on Dec. 22, I still can't connect either. I hope they will fix the problems soon. I really enjoy using Skype.
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_U5JETQBIKQ2ZDVTMNJE47GCMNE TroyL

Don't worry, Skype will be up and running again very soon. They're very aware of how many people rely on them for their voice and video communications.
http://garyfales.com/ nevada trust

Actually, I do know what I'm talking about. Google SKYPE and the problems it has had with governments from Eastern Europe. Skype will not go down because it's a bad service, Skype will be brought down on purpose by opponents of free talk, free speech.
http://twitter.com/adhigoen just adhi

hmmm… too bad that skype might get banned from china, its been a great way to talk