Did AOL Time Warner Purposely Block Access To MSN?

from the not-this-again... dept

This is (unfortunately) becoming increasingly common. We hear a story about how customers of one ISP are suddenly being blocked by (or from) another. Every time, the ISP in question always says it was some sort of "technical glitch" that is being worked on. However, in the latest case, where Time Warner's Road Runner customers couldn't access MSN sites, some are suggesting this was done intentionally - even though the official version is still "a technical glitch". However, the anonymous source claims that it was really all a part of an ongoing battle between AOL and Microsoft concerning peering relationships. If that's true, this wouldn't be the first time AOL has been accused of such actions. Earlier this year, they cut off another ISP from a peering agreement, making traffic very slow between the two. As that article suggested, if the big ISPs start using their peering arrangements this way, it could cause quite a bit of damage to the internet.

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