Rocket man brought down to earth by satellite failure

Elton John fans lose sound and vision as webcast falters...

Elton John fans were locked out of his live webcast last night after the event ran into technical hitches. The live musical extravaganza, billed as the world's first online per-per-view event, featured Elton John performing at Turkey's Ephesus arena, but a breakdown in satellite communication meant many angry fans were forced to miss Elton's performance. Fans had paid between £7 and £10 to watch the concert on 100k or 300K broadband connection, but many experienced loss of sound and vision, and delays in logging on. One silicon.com reader contacted us by email and said: "I forked out $14.99 to access the webcast at 300k. The duration was about 2 hours - I'd say I had good quality sound/video for approximately half that time. The rest of the time I had problems at various times with rebuffering, with lack of sound, with jerky video, and with a server inaccessibility." While MSN today refused to reveal how many users logged on last night and how many reported faults, a press release issued prior to the event promised that audience figures would be capped to "ensure the best quality viewing experience" An MSN spokeswoman today said: "It was a satellite communications failure that we couldn't have anticipated." MSN has said it will refund all customers who report faults.