Internet slow after terrorist attacks

NEW YORK -- Internet traffic slowed and major news Web sites were jammed Tuesday as people craving details on the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks flooded online. \nIn contrast, electronic mail was a godsend for many people frustrated by clogged telephone voice circuits. \nThe Internet search engine Google directed news seekers to radio and television. "Many online news services are not available, because of extremely high demand," a statement read on the popular site's home page. \nAmerica Online's Instant Messenger service was sporadic in New York. \nAOL's dial-up connections in New York were constantly busy, although the service was sometimes reachable by making long-distance calls elsewhere. \nMSNBC.com, the most popular news site on the Web, was working without problems, but spokesman Ben Billingsley said technicians had removed graphics from the site to allow users to access the news faster. \nKeynote Systems Inc., which measures Internet performance, said that by late morning the Web sites it tracked took slightly longer to reach -- more than four seconds, instead of the average 3.5. \nAccess was particularly bad for news sites. \nAn hour after the attack, only 43 percent of Keynote's software probes were able to get through to The New York Times, while none could reach ABC News' site at that hour. Only 22 percent were able to open MSNBC's home page at 9 a.m., about the time of the first attack, and just 18 percent could get USA Today, Keynote's snapshot showed. \nE-mail proved crucial, meanwhile, for many people seeking to reach families and friends in the chaos and uncertainty that followed Tuesday's destruction. While telephone calls produced busy signals, quick e-mail messages confirmed that loved ones were alive. \nGretchen Heefner of San Francisco quickly went online to check on several close friends in Manhattan. "Send word when you can," she wrote. \n"I could not reach anyone on their home phone, cell phone or work phone from my home phone or cell phone, and so e-mail was the best way," she said. "Fortunately, people were in their offices and have fast connections and could get their e-mail right away." \nKeynote spokesman Mary Lindsay said the company did not find any widespread problems with the Internet's central backbones, although there were limited outages in New York. "Overall, the Internet infrastructure is still operating fine," she said.