Heat blamed for Australian internet failure

iiNet's chief technology officer apologised for the failure

Extreme heat in the Australian city of Perth has forced one ISP to shut down servers in its data centre.

Australia's second largest net provider iiNet said it had turned the servers off "as a precautionary measure" as the city experienced temperatures topping 44.4C.

It left thousands of customers offline for about six-and-a-half hours.

Many of them later took to Twitter to vent their frustration and question why the meltdown occurred.

"Our Perth data centre was subject to a partial failure of both the mains and back-up air-conditioning systems yesterday," iiNet's chief technology officer Mark Dioguardi said in a blog post.

"This, along with the extreme heat necessitated a shutdown to a portion of our servers.

"Although our plans ensured over 98% of customers remained unaffected, some customers experienced issues reconnecting to the internet," he admitted.

The net closure affected users in Western Australia, New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia.

Many still managed to find a way to get on to Twitter and Facebook to complain about the issue.

The tweet below summed up the mood of many.

The UK's Internet Service Providers' Association (Ispa) told the BBC the problem was unlikely to be replicated in the UK.

"Data centres and networks are designed with resilience in mind. Whilst we wouldn't expect 44 degrees in the UK, ISPs and data centre operators are very much prepared for the unpredictable British weather," said Ispa secretary general Nicholas Lansman.