INTERNET BLACKOUT IN THE NORTHWEST

The northwest part of the country has been hit by Internet "outages" in the last two weeks that have lasted up to a few hours, sources tell TIME Daily. "The result is that parts of the Internet are not available to other parts," says Jeff White, director of network services for Internex, a Bay area network provider. "I've had a lot of complaints by my customers." At some intervals, as much as 40 percent of the Internet was inaccessible by people from the Northwest, White says. When White complained to his Internet service provider, Sprint, he was told that the company was fixing a bug in its routing software. Sprint could not be reached for comment.