The internet in Europe is facing its first major test today as unpaid volunteers who have been maintaining a network that carries a quarter of all European web traffic prepare to switch it off.
Roughly 100 unpaid former employees of failed Dutch telecoms company KPNQwest, who have been keeping the company's Ebone network up and running, plan to shut it down at 4pm this afternoon if no buyer comes forward.
The workers have been occupying Ebone's operations centre in Hoeilaart just outside Brussels but have decided that after eight days enough is enough. "If your email doesn't crash you will still feel the impact of the global price increases that must result from the closure of a network of this magnitude," the workers warned in an email last night.
Ebone's clients include many of Europe's internet service providers, including AOL and Easynet, as well as other carriers such as C&W, AT&T, Deutsche Telekom, Energis and Telecom Italia.
Major consulting firm Cap Gemini Ernst & Young is also understood to have placed clients with Ebone. US-based financial news service Bloomberg also has a number of connections to the Ebone network.
While many large corporate clients of Ebone have already switched to other operators such as Colt and BT Ignite, small and medium-sized businesses which use Ebone for their internet connections are unlikely to have managed to find alternatives.
Many small businesses have already contacted Ebone, saying that they fear the shutdown will force them out of business. "To be honest we don't know what sort of impact shutting down the network will have - no one can really predict it. All you can do is estimate it because the network carries 25% of European internet traffic. No one has ever shut down a major internet provider before," said Graham Kinsey, one of the handful of volunteers still at the network centre in Belgium.
The interconnected nature of the worldwide web and the fact that Ebone's network was state of the art, means that a lot of internet traffic used it as the quickest route between two computers.
Anthony Tilke, former senior manager for internet technology engineering at the company, said that if the network was shut down it was likely to take longer for web pages to load up and emails to be delivered.
"You will not see a complete cut in traffic, there are alternate routes that traffic can take. It will be rerouted but you will see a tremendous degradation in service," he said.
KPNQwest bought the Ebone network in March this year from US carrier GTS. That deal greatly increased KPNQwest's debts and the company was plunged into a funding crisis which forced it to seek protection from its creditors late last month.
The company has been frantically seeking a buyer for all or part of its business. Although talks have been held with two other European network operators who wanted to lease Ebone's capacity for a short period no deal has yet been struck.
Last night one Ebone employee said:"Rather than potentially lose control of the network if bankruptcy administrators start to sell off assets in the various countries we have decided to take direct action now and shut down the network."
