No, it’s not just you. A Skype “supernode” outage has left millions of users without access to the popular Internet phone service. According to company engineers, the problem may last a few more hours, and video calling may not be available until even later.

So, what’s a supernode? Glad you asked. According to The Wall Street Journal:

So what went wrong? The company says the problem has to do with its “supernodes” — a crucial part of its peer-to-peer networking system. Almost any computer in the network can be a Skype supernode, and these act like directories for the service, telling Skype things like who is online. Skype says a problem with some versions of Skype took a bunch of supernodes down, meaning that people weren’t able to log on as normal.

Skype’s last major outage, according to The Journal, was in 2007.

Skype Down for Millions of Users [WSJ.com]

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