America Online's Web-based e-mail systems were back up by mid-afternoon Wednesday after a technical glitch caused sporadic delays and problems with receiving and sending e-mails, said AOL spokesman Nicholas Graham. One remaining issue--delays in receiving e-mail from large bulk e-mailers like large merchants and the U.S. government--was expected to be resolved by the end of the night, he said. The problem, which began early Wednesday morning, was systemwide and also affected AIM Mail, CompuServe and Netscape e-mail users.
"Obviously it is a very rare and isolated incident," Graham said. "We're still not sure of the cause; whether it was a software or hardware glitch."