BlackBerries suffer from second major outage

BlackBerry owners are experiencing their second major outage of data service in one year, according to multiple reports from readers and those on the web. Both AT&T and T-Mobile users in the US have reportedly been unable to either browse the web or use the smartphone line's characteristic push e-mail service since this morning, effectively crippling their use for most owners. Neither carriers nor the BlackBerry's creator Research in Motion have commented on the issue, though contact with T-Mobile technical support has confirmed a "slowdown" in mail delivery affecting all its BlackBerry subscribers.

The issue is most likely tied to RIM itself, which operates its e-mail service from a central server in Canada and could face significant repercussions from the event, which follows a worldwide outage in April that knocked most users offline for more than a day and triggered outrage from users that had come to depend on BlackBerries for work. RIM claimed that the first outage had been triggered by an upgrade and promised to improve its network to prevent another recurrence of the problem.