North American Cell Phone Outage

BLACKBERRY SERVICE FALTERS IN NORTH AMERICA


NEW YORK (AP) -- A major service outage afflicted users of the popular, addictive BlackBerry smart phones across the United States and Canada on Monday.

Officials with AT&T Inc. and Verizon Wireless said BlackBerry maker Research in Motion Ltd. told them customers of all wireless carriers were affected.

It was not immediately clear how many of the 12 million worldwide BlackBerry subscribers had problems, as some users reported being able to access their service normally Monday afternoon.

But Garth Turner, a member of the Canadian Parliament, said during a caucus meeting that the incident -- the second widespread disruption in 10 months -- was having a big impact.

"Everyone's in crisis because they're all picking away at their BlackBerrys and nothing's happening," Turner said. "It's almost like cutting the phone cables or a total collapse in telegraph lines a century ago. It just isolates people in a way that's quite phenomenal."

Bell Canada spokesman Jason Laszlo said the majority of its BlackBerry customers were affected.

The BlackBerry service, which lets users check e-mail and access other data services on their handheld devices, has become a lifeline for many business executives and is increasingly popular among consumers with models like the BlackBerry Pearl.

In a statement, RIM said a "data service interruption" resulted in "intermittent service delays for BlackBerry subscribers in North America."

The company said voice and text messaging services were not affected.

RIM later said data service was restored around 6:30 p.m. EST, about three hours after the outage began.

"No messages were lost and message queues began to be cleared after normal service levels were restored," the company said, apologizing to customers for the inconvenience.

There was no word on what caused the outage.

Major disruptions have been rare but often provoke an angry backlash against Waterloo, Ontario-based RIM because of its typically lengthy silences about the cause and because it eventually gives only cryptic, jargon-laden explanations.

When the BlackBerry service suffered a major outage last April, the company remained silent about the cause for two days.

The latest outage enraged some BlackBerry customers who were also hit by the network failure last year.

Stuart Gold, a customer who says he gets 1,000 e-mails a day as director of field marketing for Web analytics company Omniture Inc., worked on his laptop most of Monday after his BlackBerry went on the blink.

Although Gold said he thought last year's outage gave him a needed break from work, Monday's frayed his last nerve.

"I cannot believe this happened again," he said as he got off a plane. "I'm on the road 300 days a year. My entire life is in my BlackBerry -- my family life, my professional life, my emotional life, everything. ... They're not allowed to do this to me."

Gold, 49, said he plans to ask his company to buy him a second smart phone from a rival as a backup. BlackBerry competitors include Palm Inc.'s Treo.

In a statement, AT&T spokesman Fletcher Cook said the company first learned about the problem from RIM about 3:30 p.m. EST.

"This is not an issue with AT&T's wireless network," Cook said.

RIM has deals with scores of wireless carriers to offer the BlackBerry service around the world.

AP Technology Writer Jordan Robertson in San Jose, Calif., and Associated Press Writer Rob Gillies in Toronto contributed to this report.

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Greetings and Salutations to All my Kith and Kin and All the Ships in Outer Space:

Somebody's lying about something.

Yesterday evening, I was using my cell phone to talk to friends in Utah.

All of a sudden, the phone went dead.

I thought my friend, who has health problems, may have punched the wrong button and accidentally cut off our conversation.

When I dialed back, I got a busy signal.

Eventually, I got through, but there was no sound at all.

Then they called me.

But, again, I could hear absolutely nothing, not even my own telephone ringing.

The phone lit up, displayed the number that was calling, and indicated I was answering the call.

But, there was no sound.

The battery was still good, and I had over five hundred minutes left in my account.

So, I tried calling a local number here in Washington, D.C., and the same thing happened.

Everything appeared to be working normally, but there was no sound.

I got on the computer and sent an e-mail to Utah asking what was going on.

At the same time, they sent me an e-mail asking me the same question.

Then I saw the news report on my YAHOO! screen, and I knew what was going on.

I don't own or use a Blackberry.

My cell phone is a rebuilt used Nokia, purchased from Wal-Mart in Vernal, Utah.

My account is prepaid from TracFone, and my carrier is AllTel.

So, I reckon all of this stuff is somehow interlinked together, despite the denials in the news report.

I e-mailed a copy of the news report to my friends in Utah.

I watched TV and waited a while, and then tried my phone again.

This time, it worked, and everything was back to normal.

Last night (actually during the wee hours of this morning), the broadcast of COAST TO COAST AM featured an interview with security consultant, Kevin Mitnick, a convicted Internet hacker.

They discussed the Blackberry outage and also wondered about the eight separate incidents of undersea computer cables being cut, including the relatively low amount of news coverage of those incidents.

I am curious if any of you all were similarly affected, and what were the details of your experiences?

Also, do any of you all have any theories or opinions about all of those undersea Internet cables being "accidentally" severed?

Thank you.

John Robert "SAIGON" Mallernee, KB3KWS
Official Bard of Clan Henderson
Armed Forces Retirement Home
Washington, D.C. 20011-8400

NOTE: "My unpopular and controversial personal opinions are independent of my Scottish clan."