My BlackBerry in’t working this morning. Apparently, I’m not alone.
Research In Motion Ltd., maker of the BlackBerry phone, said some North American customers using the device are experiencing problems with their e-mail service.
Technicians are working on the problem, the Waterloo, Ontario-based company said in an e-mailed statement today. Phone service and Web browsing aren’t affected, RIM said.
Businesses and governments worldwide rely on BlackBerrys for communication. RIM, which competes with devices such as Apple Inc.’s iPhone, had about 32 million subscribers globally at the end of August.
The outage is affecting all BlackBerry users, regardless of their carrier, who are using RIM’s Internet-based e-mail service instead of corporate servers, said Jeffrey Nelson, a spokesman for Verizon Wireless, the biggest U.S. wireless carrier.
This happens frequently enough that it’s a nuisance but not enough to cancel the service. It’s one of the irritants of our networked existence that we’re all subject to the mercies of server farms and a handful of other choke points.
