I've been trying off and on since 9:15 EST this morning to log on to eBay, without success. I keep getting messages that 'connection cannot be established'. The message center at Auctionwatch.com indicates that many people in all parts of the country are having the same trouble. Funny thing is that some folks are having no trouble at all. One person said he had two different ISP's; he could connect on one, but not the other. Another could connect with IE 5, but not with Netscape. A third emailed eBay, and the reply came back that eBay is not aware of the problem. Anybody got any idea what's going on?

-- bz (beezee@statesville.net), February 28, 2000

Answers

I'm on a Sprint NOC notifications list (no, I do not work for Sprint).

According to the notification, Sprint has been having major router problems this morning. This may be related.

-- Arnie Rimmer (Arnie_Rimmer@usa.net), February 28, 2000.

Here's the text of the announcement:

Subject: sl-gw5-sea, sl-gw30-pen, sl-gw31-pen, sl-gw23-chi

EMERGENCY MAINTENANCE ANNOUNCEMENT

Purpose for maintenance: Network fix
Maintenance date: feb. 28th
Maintenance start time: 8:00 est
Estimated end time: unknown
Details of maintenance: OUTAGE MESSAGE

Greetings,

At approximately 8:00 a.m EST on 02/28/2000, we experienced connectivity failure in sl-gw5-sea, sl-gw30-pen, sl-gw31-pen, and sl-gw23-chi. As a result, all customers connected to these routhers will experience a temporary loss of connectivity.

Impact to customers: We are working to fix the problem at this time. Currently, the estimated time to repair is unknown. We will keep you updated on this issue as we get new information.

*** END OF QUOTED TEXT ***

-- Arnie RImmer (Arnie_Rimmer@usa.net), February 28, 2000.

This morning my ISP had mail server problems & we couldn't get mail for a while. This evening I couldn't get ANY sites to come in at 7:00PM Pacific and I gave up after about 15 minutes. It appears to be working now. I have a feeling there was something up (or NOT up) with the Net today but I have no idea what! I couldn't even reach my ISP by phone this morning - the lines were busy.

-- Caryn (artchicks@yahoo.com), February 29, 2000.