EarthLink Hobbled by Earth Day Crash

ISP EarthLink was hit with a major outage Wednesday, with EarthLink users unable to access their e-mail or any web pages hosted by the company.

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The cause of the crash is not currently known, as the company's Web page has been knocked offline and the company's phone numbers have apparently been disconnected as well. Inquiries to the EarthLink public relations about the cause and nature of the outage were not immediately returned.

EarthLink users first started reporting problems with their EarthLink e-mail accounts on Twitter at around 10:30 a.m. EST Wednesday morning. Needless to say, most of the tweeters were not particularly happy with the situation.

"Wake-up call to EarthLink," wrote meechybee. "You may need a Twitter page of your own. We need updates (and your phones aren't working)."

"EarthLink down on Earth Day," pondered tweeter QuiCacet. "Coincidence or dastardly conspiracy?"

As an ISP in Atlanta, EarthLink serves an estimated 2.8 million subscribers in the United States. The company provides several different kinds of connections, including dial-up, cable and DSL. Additionally, it offers Web hosting and VoIP services.