Outage knocks BlackBerry users offline

BlackBerry mobile data services were disrupted Monday afternoon due to a problem with Research in Motion's infrastructure, apparently affecting customers of all major North American mobile operators, an AT&T Wireless spokesman said.

RIM told AT&T the problem began at about 3:30 p.m. Eastern Time and that the Waterloo, Ontario, company was working to identify and solve the problem, said AT&T spokesman Mark Siegel. RIM officials were not immediately available for comment.

After 6 p.m. Eastern, users on a BlackBerry Internet message board began reporting that service had returned to normal.

The popular smartphones rely on both a cellular network for transport and RIM's own network for pushing e-mail to end-users. Last month, problems with AT&T's network disrupted service to some of its subscribers with BlackBerrys, as well as iPhone users.

Several users on various mobile networks reported connection problems on Monday afternoon on the message board.

BlackBerry users may not be able to send or receive messages, browse the Internet, or use the BlackBerry Internet Service Web site, according to a message from RIM that some users on the board posted. In addition, BlackBerry Enterprise Servers may not be able to connect to RIM's infrastructure, and carriers and resellers may not be able to create accounts or provision services, the notice said. The outage happened because "a component of the network infrastructure is experiencing a service interruption."

Zenprise, a maker of service management software that monitors BlackBerry service and notifies administrators of problems, detected the outage and notified customers at 3:23 p.m. Eastern, according to Ahmed Datoo, Zenprise's vice president of marketing. After running a series of tests, Zenprise determined that the root of the problem was in RIM's infrastructure. The Fremont, Calif., company, which counts about 100 enterprises and SMBs among its customers, has not determined the total scope of the outage. BlackBerry service for Zenprise's own customers has been going up and down during the outage, Datoo said.