Skype downtime clarified – problem with supernodes

For those of you who are affected by Skype’s downtime, fret not, help is on the way. According to a blog post on the official Skype blog, Peter Parkes, Skype’s blogger-in-chief announced that the downtime is caused by their supernodes going down. He explains that Skype isn’t like other conventional phone or IM networks – it relies on individual connections between computers and phones to keep things up and running instead of one central server. Some of these computers are supernodes which help users to locate each other. But because a large number of these nodes are down, users have been experiencing difficulty connecting to Skype as well as sending and receiving messages. The blog post mentions that they have engineers on the scene now, creating new “mega-supernodes” which should gradually return things to normal. There’s nothing you can do about it for now, so just sit tight and wait. Or find an alternative IM/VOIP software, there’s plenty out there that you can use in the meantime.

George Wong
Categories: General, Top Stories, Web
Tags: announcements, call, downtime, fix, problem, Skype, Update, voip, web