Internet messaging keeps businesses, employees in touch

Phone circuits were jammed, and cell phones couldn't handle the increased traffic last week. Frustrated at the inability to connect, many people found human reassurance from lines of simple text, transmitted over the Internet.

"Our folks have been using electronic messaging to stay in touch with colleagues, loved ones and to even help come to terms with what is happening," said Eugene Stein, a lawyer and director of information and professional services at Shearson & Sterling, a law firm in midtown Manhattan. The firm has more than 1,000 lawyers in all of the world's financial centers.

"There has been no noticeable impact on our systems as a result of this increase in traffic," Stein said.

Rich Schineller, a spokesman for 3rd Millennium Management in Wayne, N.J., said he was able to connect with workers in the company's New York office through e-mail Tuesday, via a T1 line. 3rd Millennium has offered to manage communications services for companies affected by last week's terrorist attacks at no cost. Schineller said he has sent out 200 e-mails telling companies to reassure employees that their direct-deposit paychecks will go through as they usually do, for example.

Stephen Northcutt, an attendee at a SANS Institute conference in Boston last week, recounted one use of instant messaging.

"[It] kept running without a hitch," he said. "We had a bunch of stranded Secret Service and FBI agents [who were attending a convention down the hall], and we let them use our wireless access point and wired switches. They were staying in touch and getting their assignments via [instant messaging]."

America Online Inc. in Dulles, Va., said it saw a record-high number of messages on its free service, AOL Instant Messenger (AIM). With both the 700 million messages on AIM and the AOL subscribers using the same instant messaging technology, AOL tallied 1.2 billion chat messages last Tuesday.

Microsoft Corp.'s competing free instant messaging service, MSN Messenger, also saw a spike in usage, said Sarah Lefko, MSN lead product manager.

There was still a way to find the comfort of a human voice without the phone lines. Columbia University coordinated with Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, OARnet, Ohio State University, Penn State University RADVision, Texas A&M, the University of North Carolina and the University of Pennsylvania to offer voice over IP links from New York to other locations around the country.

IDG.