I've just been on the www.whirlpool.net.au site and thought I'd
provide an update for affected users.
Looks like the problem is with SprintLink network which is confirmed
by my latest traceroute to www.apple.com.
richard-kays-ibook-g4:~ rmkay$ traceroute www.apple.com
traceroute to www.apple.com.akadns.net (17.112.152.32), 64 hops max,
40 byte packets
1 speedtouch.lan (10.0.0.138) 1.471 ms 0.530 ms 0.433 ms
2 172.29.30.152 (172.29.30.152) 13.693 ms 14.976 ms 15.687 ms
3 172.31.173.110 (172.31.173.110) 18.243 ms 16.123 ms 14.901 ms
4 cpe-61-9-243-1.wa.bigpond.net.au (61.9.243.1) 16.048 ms 13.442
ms 12.915 ms
5 61.9.241.8 (61.9.241.8) 14.682 ms 14.758 ms 18.161 ms
6 gigabitethernet4-1.pie2.perth.telstra.net (139.130.25.93) 12.085
ms 16.734 ms 15.951 ms
<SNIP>
18 sl-bb24-ana-5-0.sprintlink.net (144.232.1.49) 318.118 ms
317.982 ms 316.928 ms
19 sl-bb22-ana-13-0.sprintlink.net (144.232.1.149) 316.166 ms
311.790 ms 314.600 ms
20 * * *
21 * * *
Judging from the Whirlpool posts, it appears one of the routers
within the SprintLink DataCentre is the cause of the problem.
And the reason why Bigpond's technical email help link is broken is
because it too goes through SprintLink as follows:
richard-kays-ibook-g4:~ rmkay$ traceroute bigpond.custhelp.com
traceroute to bigpond.custhelp.com (216.136.229.154), 64 hops max, 40
byte packets
1 speedtouch.lan (10.0.0.138) 1.458 ms 0.498 ms 4.422 ms
2 172.29.30.152 (172.29.30.152) 15.354 ms 13.398 ms 16.944 ms
3 172.31.173.110 (172.31.173.110) 18.162 ms 15.667 ms 15.142 ms
4 cpe-61-9-243-1.wa.bigpond.net.au (61.9.243.1) 22.064 ms 14.091
ms 13.215 ms
5 61.9.241.8 (61.9.241.8) 11.903 ms 14.120 ms 12.680 ms
6 gigabitethernet4-1.pie2.perth.telstra.net (139.130.25.93) 29.243
ms * 26.244 ms
<SNIP>
17 * sl-bb24-ana-5-0.sprintlink.net (144.232.1.49) 317.636 ms
318.363 ms
18 sl-st21-la-13-0.sprintlink.net (144.232.20.69) 333.580 ms
319.893 ms 319.611 ms
19 * * *
20 * * *
Hopefully someone in the US will fix the problem soon.
RK
