Internet service provider North Rock Communications has cleared up problems that plagued customers trying to send out e-mails over the week-end, blaming the problem on a spike in spam mail. Marketing coordinator Che Barker said there had been problems experienced by customers over the Labour Day holiday week-end because of unusually high receipt of unsolicited, or spam, e-mails, which flooded into the North Rock system.

A number of reports reaching yesterday indicated that customers were unable to send out e-mail on North Rock servers for several days, as well as problems sending e-mails that had attached files.

The problem was rectified by yesterday afternoon, according to Mr. Barker, who said there could continue to be some delay in mail delivery, but the mail server was processing all outgoing mail.

He denied that any mail sent out on the week-end may have been lost, something that at least one North Rock customer is concerned about.

Roger Crombie, a business writer facing deadlines both this week-end and last, told he had been unable to send out e-mails with attachments on the past two weekends.

?As far as I can tell my messages went into thin air,? he said. ?I know that e-mails I sent didn?t arrive because I sent some to myself [to test the system.?

Mr. Crombie complained that he missed deadlines to file stories by Monday morning with UK publishers because it was a holiday here and no one was at North Rock to respond to his calls.

Mr. Barker said that North Rock?s servers are set up to alert the company?s technicians when there is a problem.

He could not say if any personnel responded over the week-end to clear out the backlog of spam mail ? with as many as 20,000 spam e-mails flooding on to North Rock?s server during a single one-hour period.

Yesterday Mr. Crombie said North Rock?s management had promised to personally investigate the problems he had experienced, and make sure it is rectified.