Did Apple's iPad debut put a choke-hold on the Internet?

If our experience here and the chatter on Twitter is any indication, then the answer is that it sure looks as though the Internet gagged on an iPad.

I presumed my machine had picked up a case of H1-N1 before consulting with a couple of colleagues and confirming that the performance woes were widespread.

Then came this e-mail from our IT department: "We are experiencing slow network response time when accessing the internet due to heavy network traffic going to macworldexpo.com for today’s Apple’s new product announcements. We are currently looking to see if we can adjust for this to improve internet performance.I will keep you posted of any changes that occur."

On Twitter there seems little doubt as to who and what are to blame:

@justinmurphy Haha the internet is moving ridiculously slow at the moment. Thank you apple!

@Pucuck the internet is slow and we can all thank Apple.

RT @CrisValerio: internet is SO SLOW...and I can't feed out any pics or video...it feels like Apple is blocking it or something...

@colinzerk I think Steve Jobs broke the internet. Everything is slow!

RT @smokingapples: Sorry folks. The whole internet is slow today. Apple happened. Hopefully CoveritLive will come back to life soon.

@jaymer The apple event is burning the internet to the ground. Twitter, Engadget, even TWiTlive. Stuff is slow and not working.

@ssamani For any political wonks wondering why internet is running slow, its cos Apple's Steve Jobs is announcing the Tablet to end all Tablets

And so on and so forth.

I'm trying to get more authoritative information, but that effort is being hampered by the fact that Apple apparently broke the Internet.

Here's all I know for certain: If this is all it takes, then the Internet has some serious explaining to do.

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