Libya's internet connections appear to be slowly coming back online after a six-month blackout. The state-run internet service provider (ISP) carried a message on its website that said: "Libya, one tribe".
However, local people have reported patchy reliability with connections coming and going.
Internet traffic in Libya dropped to almost nothing in early March when Colonel Gaddafi's government pulled the plug in an attempt to suppress dissent.
With Tripoli under siege, and the rebels reportedly gaining the upper hand, the authorities' stranglehold on net connections appeared to be loosening.
Both Google's web analytics and Akamai's net monitoring service showed a spike in traffic coming from the country early on 22 August.
Akamai's director of market intelligence, David Belson, said that internet activity had increased almost 500%, although it had declined again later in the day.
<<Print>>