Glitch Blocks Road Runner Users From MSN, Hotmail

A glitch with Road Runner, the AOL Time Warner cable
Internet service, has left large numbers of the service’s customers unable
to access many Microsoft sites, including the MSN portal and Hotmail.

The problem first cropped up Tuesday, but stretched into Wednesday, while
the company continued its attempts to work out a fix.

A Road Runner representative told internetnews.com that Road
Runner’s engineers believe the glitch occurred as AOL was updating its
routing tables and another company — possibly Microsoft or another carrier
that uses the same pipe — was performing routine maintenance at the same
time. He noted that Road Runner traffic to Microsoft’s sites was being
refused because of some sort of routing problem, but could not identify the
problem directly.

“There was no breakdown of the system,” the spokesperson said, noting that
maintenance has not led to this sort of problem previously.

“We can’t resolve it just internally because it doesn’t seem to have been
initiated internally,” the spokesperson said.

However, as of 10:30 a.m. EDT, the spokesperson said Road Runners engineers
felt the problem would be resolved within about an hour.

“Our guys seem pretty optimistic that it will be resolved shortly,” he
said.