ntl suffocated by signup mayhem on day 1

Despite promises to the contrary, ntl's signup service was brought down Tuesday evening by a stampede of people desperate to get access to its free Internet service.

The ntl Web site itself is accessible, as is part of the registration process. However, when a would-be ntl user tries to reach the signup page, a browser is met with the following disheartening message:

HTTP Error 403

403.9 Access Forbidden: Too many users are connected

AltaVista suffered a similar fate shortly after launching its own low-cost unmetered access service on Monday.