Re: infrastructure and capacity...
An update from the AOL Insider column regarding capacity status and a couple of coming features:
<<AOL INSIDER
MEG'S UPDATE: DECEMBER 20
Conversations with a Big Kahuna
This week's Big Kahuna is AOL Technology President Mike Connors, but I prefer to call him Sensei-O-L (not to be confused with Chief Tech Bwana). You see, Mike reminds me of a Sensei, the Japanese word for teacher, because he explains technology better than anyone I know.
Meg:What are you doing technologically to get over this hump of unlimited pricing?
Sensei-O-L: We're adding capacity all day and all night, seven days a week. And consider this: on October 1 we could handle 140,000 simultaneous users. We now support more than 236,000 simultaneous users. So in 75 days we grew more than our ENTIRE CAPACITY was one year ago (we could only handle 84,300 people online at once). By the way, we've also doubled our email and Web surfing capabilities over the past three months, with continued expansion planned.
Meg:How do you get online at night and who do you call when you can't?
Sensei-O-L: I call my AOLNet numbers....[editor's note, at this point he rattles off all the local numbers in this area. By heart]. I also randomly access a variety of other AOLNet points of entry throughout the country, like NY and San Francisco, to check how they are. There are no secret numbers that I use. If I can't dial in, I do just what the members do. I try again until I connect. And I make it a practice to access the system at it's busiest peak, which is at 10:30 p.m. EST.
Meg:Members are concerned that AOL doesn't care about Mac users.
Sensei-O-L: Of course we care. That rumor is really quite false. Our Mac 3.0 product is today in preview and can be downloaded from Keyword: Upgrade. A full scale launch is "imminent." Unequivocally, Mac is back.
Meg:What's up with customer service?
Sensei-O-L: Because of unprecedented demand for the new AOL and our new pricing, the volume of calls received from member services has come close to doubling. This extraordinarily favorable response has caught us with insufficient staff to provide acceptable customer service.
Meg:Wow. I can't believe you really said that.
Sensei-O-L: That's going to change though! Right now, we have approximately 3800 customer service representatives and we plan to offer 500 more this month. We're adding 27 T1 trunk lines (very high capacity telephone lines) to cut down to less than 5% busy signals received by callers. We expect, however, a major surge in calls immediately after Christmas.>>
[unrelated stuff deleted]
<<Meg:What are the hidden gems of AOL?
Sensei-O-L: The hidden gems are ones that all the members can't see just yet. They're slideshows, AOL radio, and Virtual Places (oh, you can preview Virtual Places on WAOL 3.0 in Win 3.1). Each of those features takes one more step up the staircase of multimedia. Online services have been built around text for decades. Graphics have been in AOL for years. Sound has come only recently. These upcoming hidden gems deliver a deep multimedia experience with integrated sound, pictures, AND text (with video coming soon).
Meg: Whoa. What kind of computer will you need to run that?
Sensei-O-L: Of course these features will require more computing hardware, but well within the scope of hardware required to run Windows 95 and a Web browser at the same time. America Online's consumption of hardware and software resources is no more than required by contemporary operating systems and Web applications. >>
Personal status report. AOL system slowness or inability to log on in Tampa, Florida is intermittent, and not table pounding objectionable. Don't short this issue over capacity constraints. (there may be other valid reasons to short, but this isn't one). You are only hearing about the trouble spots, and there are many markets with no troubles reported.
Get ready for some BIG numbers to be announced for net member additions....I am guessing over 1 million net adds for qtr ending 12/31/96.
Merry Christmas,
Brian |
