Inundated CNN.com strips graphics, boosts bandwidth

September 11, 2001 —

Hit with heavy traffic following the U.S. terrorism attacks, popular news site CNN.com was scrambling to boost its server capacity and lighten up its site Tuesday in order to stay up and accessible, a spokeswoman said.

"We have tripled our internal server capacity and streamlined our site to the minimum essential information," said company spokeswoman Edna Johnson.

Johnson said that CNN is getting calls from companies around the world, offering free bandwidth to bolster their site.

The CNN site, normally laden with various links and graphics, was pared down to one major story Tuesday, under the headline "America Under Attack."

"I have no idea what sort of volume we are doing at the moment, but obviously, it's massive. We have stripped the site down to the one story, because we feel that right now, there is only one story," said a CNN.com employee in the company's London news room who asked not to be identified.

In what U.S. President George W. Bush called "an apparent terrorism attack", two hijacked airplanes smashed into the World Trade Center in New York Tuesday morning, eventually causing the towers to collapse and wreaking havoc in the city. Since then there have been two other reported plane crashes, one at the Pentagon in Washington D.C., one in Pennsylvania.

Hoping to spread out traffic, CNN is also disseminating developing news on the attacks over its online affiliates such as CNNfn.cnn.com, the company's financial outlet, and sports magazine site Sportsillustrated.cnn.com, Johnson said.

AOL Time Warner, CNN's parent company, is based in New York and can be contacted at +1-212-484-8000 or http://www.aoltimewarner.com/.

ITworld.com