Blackout shows Net's fragility

Since early Monday, Phil Bradham, the network engineer at Boston's Museum of Fine Arts, has been cut off from the parts of the Internet he needs the most.

He can't reach his Web hosting company to update his site. Critical e-mails aren't going through, and some aren't reaching him. He can't get to some important sites on the Net, such as the popular Wikipedia encyclopedia.

The source of Bradham's difficulties is a feud between two big backbone Internet companies--the long-haul networks that most consumers and even most businesses ordinarily have little to do with. One of these companies, Level 3 Communications, has cut off direct communications with rival Cogent Communications, causing many of each company's customers to lose access to potentially significant swatches of the Net.

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