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USENET NEWS SERVER PROBLEMS AT ABSNET
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On Sunday, June 9, we received the following message from ABSnet regarding
their news server.  This explains why BCPL users were unable to access
Usenet News over the weekend.
 
   "At some point yesterday we lost our Air-Conditioning which caused our
   NetNews (USENET) server fail due to high temperatures.  Luckily all
   other components of the network appear to be doing OK.  To avoid any
   possible additional damage to the server I am shutting down the server
   until Monday when this problem can be resolved."

   "Sorry for the inconvenience of not having news access for about a day,
   but this was not an anticipated event.  I am sure most will agree that
   it's not worth risking severe damage to one of our large file-servers
   due to the heat.  Thanks for your patience, and the server will be
   brought online as soon as the air-conditioning issue is resolved..."

We also learned from ABSnet that the occasional slow response from their
news server that many of you have reported recently is due to congestion
on ABSnet's connection to the rest of the Internet.  Their current
connection is no longer able to handle the traffic generated by the growth
of their business.  They will be installing a higher-capacity connection
later this month to solve the problem.