Blackberry users angry at third day of disrupted service

Disruption to BlackBerry services entered a third day today with fed-up users reporting further problems.

BlackBerry's maker Research in Motion (RIM) said in a statement last night that service problems which started on Monday were due to a "core switch failure" within its infrastructure and assured users it was working to clear a "large backlog" of data.

But this morning the Twittersphere was still abuzz with criticism about problems with the service and RIM's failure to explain it to users.

702JohnRobbie wrote: "Blackberry down again. Very poor communications from them about what the problem is. £Fail."

Bombxleo said: "maybe i'd like my phone more if it wasn't a stupid blackberry."

Others resorted to humour to mock the disruption. Sickipediabot said "It was nice of Blackberry to honour Steve Jobs with two days of silence" - a reference to the recent death of the technology pioneer who founded rival firm Apple.

Problems with BlackBerry services started at around 11am on Monday. RIM initially gave the all-clear yesterday morning but was forced to admit in a recorded message later in the day that it was experiencing a "service" issue which was having an impact on subscribers in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, India and several carriers from the Latin America region.

In a statement issued at 10pm UK time yesterday, RIM said: "The messaging and browsing delays being experienced by BlackBerry users in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, India, Brazil, Chile and Argentina were caused by a core switch failure within RIM's infrastructure.

"Although the system is designed to failover to a back-up switch, the failover did not function as previously tested.

"As a result, a large backlog of data was generated and we are now working to clear that backlog and restore normal service as quickly as possible.

"We apologise for any inconvenience and we will continue to keep you informed."

PA