[Sephiroth]

I wonder whether or not they had some sort of backhaul failure. Unless I'm mistaken, PL3 has a long backhaul to Exeter (can be verified in a traceroute). If something went amiss there, the remaining capacity would be under strain. For example, they are terminating all of PLx onto, say EXE2.

If you search the VM forums, PL3 has a long history of troubles.

EDIT: Just seen the above post. More or less fits what I said - but VM will never tell us exactly what it was.