Skype now stabilized: company

Skype has stabilized its serviceafter a crippling "software issue," the company said Thursday.

The free internet phone service said it is now at about 90 per cent of normal user volumes. Millionshad beenaffected by the problem, whichhit it Wednesday evening.

The company said the service was knocked down after a number of"supernodes" failed Wednesday because ofa software issue.

"Audio, video and IM are running normally," Skype said on its website. "But a couple of our offerings, including offline IM and Group Video Calling, are not available yet, and we are working hard to restore them in due course.

"We now understand the cause of the problem and we believe it was not caused by a malicious attack. But we are still doing a full analysis and we will provide an in-depth post-mortem."

Tony Bates, the CEO of Skype,said in a video message that"weknow this has caused a major impact to many of you, and we apologize profusely for this."

Skype has offered to compensate its paying customers.