Mick

I have received a statement today from ntl Internet Team regarding the recently reported proxy issues:-

"ntl is aware that a small number of customers have trouble accessing particular websites as a result of caching. For the last 5 years, ntl has used caches to improve the speed of response for all web traffic. This is in line with a number of other ISPs.

When the cache does not have the requested pages stored, the cache will retrieve the page from the required server. The cache will present its own address when requesting the page, not that of the customer. Unfortunately some servers can misinterpret the requests from the cache as being a denial of service attack. The administrator of the site then blocks the request for information. To resolve this ntl actively contacts the administrator to have the block lifted. Customers are equally able to report issues in accessing a site to the administrator to expedite their particular issue.

Using proxy caches improves the performance of the network for all customers by supplying regularly accessed content from local servers. To put this into perspective, just 3 requests to have blocks lifted are processed each week from our 1.5 million broadband customer base. Even so, we will continue to monitor the situation closely and if necessary investigate other alternatives."