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Telkom`s international gateway collapses

Johannesburg, 20 Jul 2006

Local DSL and dial-up users who have Web sites hosted overseas were unable to access e-mail and FTP services yesterday, after Telkom experienced a problem with its international gateway.

The problem was a cable break between Kensington and New Doornfontein, says Telkom spokesperson Candice Jeffreys.

"The breakage was caused by people doing building work in the area," she explains, adding the problem was fixed by about 4am this morning. It is unclear when the break occurred.

Jeffreys denies the problem caused major disruptions, but comments on the MyADSL forum suggest otherwise.

Frequent disconnections

MyADSL founder Rudolph Muller says the lack of access to e-mail services for people whose sites are hosted overseas is not the only recent problem.

"There have been frequent disconnections [over the past few days] of the ADSL , and certain authentication problems - and on that we haven`t seen much feedback from Telkom," he says.

"Its definitely causing irritation among users," adds Muller.

One of the site`s users explains the problem: "I can download my pop3 e-mail, ping the domain and access the control panel from iBurst and GPRS connections, but from my Telkom ADSL line I cannot access my e-mail, cannot ping the site and cannot access the control panel."

"My Web sites are hosted in Europe; I can browse my sites, but I cannot connect to the mail server or FTP," notes another user.

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