Routers delay Facebook socializing on campus

By: CLAIRE MILLER

Posted: 1/17/08

Students at universities across the nation using campus servers lost a day of social networking on the Web site Facebook.com during a router error Wednesday.

Students at the University, Kennesaw State, Georgia Tech, Clemson and Georgetown reported problems accessing the site on campus.

Bert DeSimone, associate director of Enterprise Information Technology Services, said the University is not blocking the site.

"There's no conscious effort to block Facebook at the University," DeSimone said Wednesday in a telephone interview. "There's a problem outside of the University System of Georgia with the Internet routers that route messages between domains ... but it's downstream from us, so to speak."

John Vanchella, special assistant in the Board of Regents office of media and publications, said the problem is related to the connection between PeachNet and Facebook.

The Office of Information and Instructional Technology "is aware of this problem but doesn't know much about it," Vanchella said.

PeachNet is the state's communications network for all of the state's institutions.

But John Millsaps, Board of Regents communications director, said he didn't know about the site being inaccessable on some servers.

"That sounds like an institutional issue," Millsaps said.

Matt Meador, a University student from Lawrenceville, said he and his friends tried to access Facebook during class Wednesday but couldn't.

Later that day, he spoke with his friends at Kennesaw State and Georgia Tech, who were having similar problems. Then he tried to access the site through a different server and instantly connected to the site, he said.

"We went to a proxy server online while we were still on campus and we could access every time," Meador said.

Facebook began working on campus late Wednesday, about 24 hours after it stopped.