I received this from another list. I am writing to respond on the PRO's behalf to some of the issues which have been raised on this newsgroup over the past few days. I will endeavour to keep you updated with more information as it emerges: 1) Demand - I read the debate here with some interest. Clearly we under-estimated the likely volume of usage on the first few days. Our thinking, based on the usage figures of similar genealogical web sites, was based on the assumption that we would get 1 million visitors a day. Each visitor would view a number of pages and consequently, the number of hits (components of pages delivered) would be considerably larger than this. 2) What went wrong? We have been hit by a phenomenal demand - there were 34 million attempts to access the site in the first two days (This figure does not represent 34 million separate individuals, but a number of millions of people trying to get on several times). There therefore has been acute congestion at the entry point to the site, but behind this, the site itself works and delivers images - if you can get to it. 3) What have we done about it? We are trying three approaches to remedy the problems. First, we are working with our isp to increase bandwidth as soon as is practicable, although this can't be turned on immediately as it will require additional firewall capacity. Second, we are looking to reduce the size of the pages to be downloaded by creating a text-only site.. Finally,we are determining what can be done to improve overall capacity on the site. 4) What happened on Friday night? Due to overwhelming demand, we had to restrict access. This is now being progressively restored. 5) What about the PRO's own web site? Our site is physically separate from the census site and has remained operational despite an increase in the number of visitors from an average of 35,000 a day to 1 million on Thursday. 6) Charges - can I reiterate what I said here earlier in the week - nobody will be charged if they have not received images or transcripts. If, due to a technical problem, you do have a charge on your account, we will arrange a refund. Normally a credit card session remains open for 48 hours. Recognising that users have had difficulty in accessing the site we have increased this to 144 hours for the time being. 7) Communications - by Thursday night the PRO had received 1,000 phone calls and nearly 600 e-mails and QinetiQ even more than this. We are trying to reply as quickly and courteously as possible, but please forgive us if our response time is a little slow. Finally, all of us on the team, both from QinetiQ and the PRO are disappointed at what has happened. Some of us are keen family historians and others have relatives who have that interest. We are all convinced that we have an excellent product and are working long hours to ensure that you will be able to enjoy it as soon as possible. > > > > > > > > David Thomas > > > > Head of e-Access,PRO ----------- Karen "I use Archive CD Books to help with my research." http://www.archivecdbooks.com EYES Family History http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~karenohare Liverpool Photographers http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~liverpoolphotographers