Article content

Internet users are discovering cyberspace has its limits.

In a situation experts say is comparable to what could have happened with the Year 2000 (Y2K) bug, the Internet exceeded a memory limit for old routers this week, causing slow browsing speeds and halting access to certain websites.

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or The Internet is full: It's like Y2K — only for real Back to video

The memory max-out caused problems for eBay users in Britain who were prevented from logging on to the auction site. Elsewhere, browsing speeds were slow and websites had sporadic outages.

Experts say we should have been prepared — just as we tried to be for Y2K, a much-hyped disaster that never happened.

Not so this time.

“If this sounds like Y2K, don’t be surprised because it’s very much like it,” said Carmi Levy, an independent technology analyst based in London, Ont.

“We knew this was coming, we didn’t prepare, we got caught … Like so many things in today’s online era, we simply didn’t take it seriously until it was too late.”