BlackBerry service outages keeping your weekend interesting?

Having some BlackBerry troubles? You're not alone, we've been receiving some sporadic tips on the subject, and some forum users have reported outage trouble as well, though for other users it seems just fine. Let us know how your service is doing. Or don't -- this might be just the chance you were looking for to ditch work email and get a start on that spring tan. We won't tell a soul.

[ericthebikeman @ Mar 29th 2008 1:21PM]

No outage for me, I've been getting messages all morning.

[Nathan @ Mar 29th 2008 2:11PM]

I had a guy in a three piece suit accost me today, rambling about how he was "being forsaken."

Crackberry indeed.










Then he offered to blow me if I could get his service working.

[Kris @ Mar 29th 2008 2:31PM]

Nathan, you tried too hard.

[Nathan @ Mar 29th 2008 2:48PM]

Thanks! It's nice to be appreciated for my 'hard' work!

[Dante @ Mar 29th 2008 3:51PM]

@nathan:

I see what you did there.

[imacmatt09 @ Mar 29th 2008 1:29PM]

I have no EDGE on my iPhone. I haven't for like 2 days.

[Gary @ Mar 29th 2008 1:50PM]

yeah my girlfriend has had that same problem with her iPhone here in las vegas, and my blackberry has been on the fritz for like 3 days now we thought maybe a tower was down.

[Joe @ Mar 29th 2008 3:34PM]

How do you get by without YouTube at your fingertips? Oh the humanity!

[chmiel03 @ Mar 29th 2008 1:37PM]

Ive thought about getting a crack-berry but why pay all that money and get inconsistent service and worry about lawsiuts shutting the service down. There's always the iPhone... which is getting better over time.

[ericthebikeman @ Mar 29th 2008 1:58PM]

Umm, no exchange is a deal killer for nearly anyone in a corporate enviroment. Not to mention it comes across as a toy to executives. Basically you don't use them for business if you want anyone to take you seriously.

[cashmonee @ Mar 29th 2008 2:14PM]

@eric
Might want to come out of your cave once in a while. iPhone will have full Exchange support in a few short months. Try another excuse.

[elbrando @ Mar 29th 2008 2:14PM]

@ ericthebikeman: sez you. I use mine for my business. I don't need, have or want Exchange. I find Google Apps to be much superior for my needs. I know many people like me. I've found that even some of my enterprise clients are jealous of what I can do with my iPhone. That said, there are certainly a lot of people that need and want the BlackBerry/Exchange route, so I'm not hatin' on it. I support it in many instances in fact.

Now, about iPhone's pesky lack of 3G...

[Nick @ Mar 29th 2008 2:20PM]

Not true where I work. Seems like everyone in my department (Network technicians) aren't the only ones pushing for them, but the administrators as well. As soon as they see a demo of an iPhone they quickly decide they want one. I figure exchange support in June is just going to increase the desire to get one even more, and make justification for buying it easier.

[Reid @ Mar 29th 2008 7:54PM]

I can't speak for the Blackberry as I've never used one, but Windows Mobile is treated almost equally well in the business world, despite being frankly a stillborn product even at version 5.0. The iPhone is both a better toy, a more useful communications device, and with Exchange support will be worthy of more respect than WM in the enterprise. I know LOTS of engineers that have them, despite the propensity of the haters to say that only teenage girls use Apple products.

Too bad mine vibrated its way into a ~4ft drop onto a tile floor a few days ago while on a business trip. Not its first fall onto a hard surface, but the first one resulting in damage. The screen has a crack that runs the entire length now. Only cosmetic damage, and almost invisible when using the phone, but very visible from any side angle. Guess it just means I'll be buying a 3G version when it comes out rather than sticking with this one for a few more years...

[CUBSWILLWIN @ Mar 29th 2008 1:37PM]

Well my friend was close to getting admitted to a mental hospital because of how he suffered in the outtages.

[Bob @ Mar 29th 2008 1:42PM]

Sporadic outages for the last 24 hours--clients reporting same. Blackberry Messenger messages hanging for hours, sporadic email delays of 4-6 hours

[David @ Mar 29th 2008 1:53PM]

Seems fine for me as far as I can tell - Verizon in the North East.

Saw a post on the BBOutages list about someone with BIS wondering if there was an issue. They were on AT&T in Wash DC area.

[Steve Bourque @ Mar 29th 2008 1:51PM]

There was scheduled maintenance on the Blackberry system in North America this morning. May be lingering results of that.


http://www.blackberryforums.com/blackberry-network/122244-rescheduled-rim-scheduled-outage-march-29-2008-a.html

[Steve Bourque @ Mar 29th 2008 1:54PM]

Here's a more informative link, although I didn't see anything on RIM's site.

http://www.blackberryforums.com/general-blackberry-discussion/122637-scheduled-rim-outage-tonight-2008-03-28-a.html

[Stephen Pace @ Mar 29th 2008 1:51PM]

I noticed that I had a data issue early this morning around 1am (Google Maps couldn't finish populating a map). However, this morning I also notice that I was pushed a new version of Google Maps for Blackberry (version 1.6.3 -> 2.0.2). So it is sporadic. I'm on AT&T with an 8820.

[Mike @ Mar 29th 2008 1:54PM]

This is what happens when the government, most specifically the FCC turns it eye away from regulation and let whatever crappy phone company do whatever they want to spread our valuable spectum too thin and sacrifice a solid standard for shiny bells and whistles that dazzle us for 10 seconds before that bell gets hacked. Europe got it right on this one and look how far ahead they are. The Blackberry network and IDEN should have never been created.

[Reid @ Mar 29th 2008 7:56PM]

Really, you're blaming this on a lack of regulation? Yeah, there's no problem government can't solve.. *snort*. Seems that only the blackberry network has frequent prolonged outages. I'd be out of a job if the services I'm in charge of were that unreliable, and I don't have nearly as much revenue. Maybe RIM is just incompetent?

[Jeff @ Mar 29th 2008 1:56PM]

Verizon - in the midwest

I missed a handful of text messages last night. Other than that nothing. Working fine this morning. Did a battery pull just in case.

[NetworkTech @ Mar 29th 2008 2:01PM]

simple solution.... run your own BES... thats what I do and I haven't noticed any outages! :)

[Mark G @ Mar 29th 2008 2:19PM]

tard...your bes still relies on the rim network. If it goes down, your clients will not get their messages. The last to major BB outages took town many rim users, including ones connected to a bes.

[Tom O @ Mar 30th 2008 10:30AM]

My iPhone hasn't got a dang 3G signal since I got it :/

;)

[Matthew Anderson @ Mar 29th 2008 2:09PM]

Mine has been working all weekend so far.

[Rob Conway @ Mar 29th 2008 2:13PM]

Pearl T-Mobile in Philly
I had no EDGE for like an hour yesterday, but then it was fine. today no problems, email is pushing, browsers are interwebbing (hehe) and texts and phone are texting and phoning(i know they don't have anything to do with the blackberry portion). I don't use the enterprise email, so i don't know if that has anything to do with my lack of problems.

[Christopher Spitler @ Mar 29th 2008 2:21PM]

Everything seems swell from Columbia, SC to Jacksoville, FL with Verizon.

[FactChecker @ Mar 29th 2008 2:34PM]

RIM’s BlackBerry 9000 shows how little they’ve learned from Apple’s iPhone
http://macdailynews.com/index.php/weblog/comments/16828/opinion/

[Captain Crunkled @ Mar 29th 2008 2:38PM]

Blackberry Curve on ATT in Raleigh, NC - no problems.

[j0nkatz @ Mar 29th 2008 2:39PM]

This is "supposed" to be regular scheduled maintenance.
It's the rescheduled database upgrade they never did last weekend.

[Ivan @ Apr 1st 2008 11:02AM]

I've been without Blackberry email or internet for 4 days now.

[evimalin @ Mar 29th 2008 2:47PM]

My blackberry works just fine.

=)

[ScaryFast @ Mar 29th 2008 2:44PM]

My Blackberry has been working fine, and I've been at work for the past 7 hours without a single Blackberry related call (Internet/Blackberry Help Desk)

[AD Robert @ Mar 29th 2008 2:44PM]

Verizon Utah Pearl - out yesterday and today

[funkright @ Mar 29th 2008 3:32PM]

it's a f'n device, life is more important than some crack/blackberry, maybe some disconnected time from the wireless grid will do you good... it would probably be better if we didn't have them in the 1st place..

[katz22b @ Mar 29th 2008 3:59PM]

Was having trouble, but resent the service books for each address and then it started working fine. This was on an AT&T blackberry.

[Ed @ Mar 29th 2008 4:02PM]

BB Pearl on Sprint network no problems (yet?) in New York, NY area...

[anonymouse @ Mar 29th 2008 4:27PM]

Northeast US, Verizon. Couldn't make outgoing calls on two different regular (NOT blackberry!) cellphones for at least an hour. Never had that problem before.

Was able to receive incoming calls though, but had some reception trouble.

It's working normally now though.

[Big T @ Mar 29th 2008 4:32PM]

Had issues early this morning here in Northern Illinois,but things have been fine all afternoon

[Mike Dell @ Mar 29th 2008 4:35PM]

My crackberry is working perfectly this weekend ... Darn it!

[Stuart B @ Mar 29th 2008 4:42PM]

Kind of a vague posting to appear on Engadget.
As others have said, there was a scheduled Maintenance on the RIM servers..so unclear whether Engadget is referring to users having issues during this period or after...whether BIS or BES.

Here's a link for user updated status:
http://www.dataoutages.com/

[Trevor @ Mar 29th 2008 4:55PM]

I started getting really odd behavior on my 8830 on Verizon yesterday. The hourglass was rotating during routine things like replying to a message. Eventually an error message popped up which I unfortunately did not record. Today it has been fine.

[Steve @ Mar 29th 2008 5:47PM]

iPhone / AT&T EDGE has been down since Friday (3/28) afternoon in south-central New Jersey. AT&T support says "yes, we know there's a problem. No, we have no estimates for fixing it". It's now 5:30pm on Sat and it's still down.

Timing truly sucks with Mom having to go to the hospital yesterday, and not able to get text updates on status....

[Bob @ Mar 29th 2008 6:10PM]

I love the comments on iPhone versus the Blackberry. Face it, Apple has never been taken seriously by corporate IT. The iPhone is not about to change that--Let's spend IT dollars to by people iPods which also function as phones. Give me a break. Oh and Exchange support--what a great solution M$ ActiveSync.

[Reid @ Mar 30th 2008 12:29AM]

Funny, Bob, I see it the exact opposite way.

Corporate IT hates supporting Apple for a number of reasons. One is users always bugging them about supporting Macs. But I think the biggest is that it would be another platform to support. Even if it made 50% market share overnight, why does your IT dept want to support 2 platforms? Hell, if Windows dropped to 10% overnight, and some other OS captured 90%, corp IT would still want to only support Windows because it doesn't require any additional work from them.

But phone platforms don't have the religious war-type history that OSes do. Lots and lots of non Mac users want an iPhone, and if ActiveSync support removes one of the last reasons not to support it, then adoption might skyrocket, and corporate IT might have to reexamine its bias against Apple products.

The biggest remaining hurdle would be cost/lack of discounts, which is of course a big one.

[alexander.diaz @ Mar 29th 2008 5:53PM]

BBM, browsing seem to be working fine.

Only issue I am having is email coming in.

[karpy91 @ Mar 29th 2008 5:48PM]

Some of my emails have been delayed a bit today.

[orpheus @ Mar 29th 2008 6:13PM]

All is well here for me in California.