New York: Internet phone and video service Skype went down in a global service outage on Wednesday, underscoring a weakness of the free online communication tool.
Skype, partly owned by Web retailer eBay Inc, said some users were having problems signing on. Users in the United States, Asia and Europe complained of the outage on social network site Twitter.
In its Twitter feed, the seven-year-old company apologized for the disruption and said it was investigating the cause. Around 3:30 p.m. EST, it said the service was returning to normal, but that it may take several hours for everyone to be able to use it again.
The outage, just days before the Christmas holiday, marked the latest blow to the service's reputation.
Skype posted an update on their website explaining the reason behind the outage:
"Skype isn't a network like a conventional phone or IM network – instead, it relies on millions of individual connections between computers and phones to keep things up and running. Some of these computers are what we call 'supernodes' – they act a bit like phone directories for Skype. If you want to talk to someone, and your Skype app can't find them immediately (for example, because they're connecting from a different location or from a different device) your computer or phone will first try to find a supernode to figure out how to reach them.
Under normal circumstances, there are a large number of supernodes available. Unfortunately, today, many of them were taken offline by a problem affecting some versions of Skype. As Skype relies on being able to maintain contact with supernodes, it may appear offline for some of you.
What are we doing to help? Our engineers are creating new 'mega-supernodes' as fast as they can, which should gradually return things to normal. This may take a few hours, and we sincerely apologise for the disruption to your conversations. Some features, like group video calling, may take longer to return to normal."
Dropped calls and service quality have long been seen as a weak point for Skype, which offers free voice and video services between users as well as low-cost calls to landlines. It had 124 million users as of October.
The company's last major outage occurred in August 2007 following a routine software upgrade.
Many consumers have been reluctant to cut off their landline and rely solely on services like Skype due in part to questions about its reliability. Such concerns, along with worries about online security, have slowed Skype's expansion into the business market.
It now also faces competition from rival online phone providers such as Google Inc, which lets its users make calls through their Gmail accounts, and high-end videoconferencing tools like Cisco Systems Inc's "umi" service.
Skype is expecting to raise up to $1 billion in an initial public offering, sources familiar with the matter told Reuters last month. One source has said the IPO will likely come some time next year.
Skype was founded in 2003. EBay bought it in 2005 for $3.1 billion.
In November, eBay sold a majority stake to an investor group including Silver Lake, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board and Andreessen Horowitz for $1.9 billion in cash and a $125 million note. EBay retained a 30 percent stake.
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