RE: FN-FORUM Could be quiet next week...

date posted 7th June 2002 10:54

My brother in law was working for KPNQ up till Friday when the
bankruptcy was announced. Even if the creditors pay up, which they
won't, the service will not be restored easily. Bailiffs have already
switched off and removed the core switches and routers, so restoring the
network that connects to the backbone is going to involve acquiring,
installing and configuring physical hardware. Not only that, but most of
the skilled staff have already been headhunted by the competition. He
described an every-man-for-himself, rats-off-a-sinking-ship scenario.
Everyone who knew what was going on was conveniently on a teambuilding
exercise in the Colorado Rockies when it all went down. Highly amusing
stuff, and some pretty funny stories about employees smuggling corporate
laptops off the premises on Friday.

/Rob

-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL REMOVED]
[EMAIL REMOVED] On Behalf Of Tony Crockford
Sent: 07 June 2002 08:39
To: [EMAIL REMOVED] net
Subject: FN-FORUM Could be quiet next week...

http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_602911.html?menu=


Millions of British internet users could face a huge slowdown in service
next week.

The owners of Europe's biggest data network are threatening to shut down
their system as early as Monday.

Dutch firm KPNQwest, which handles almost half of Europe's internet
traffic,
went bankrupt last week.

Now administrators say the network will be closed unless creditors pay
all
their debts by Monday.

Freeserve and AOL, Britain's two biggest internet service providers,
both
use KPNQwest's network.



So, how do you find out if you might be on their network too?