BlackBerry services down in North America yet again?
By Chris Ziegler 
posted December 22nd 2009 4:35PM
posted December 22nd 2009 4:35PM
Look, BlackBerrys are always supposed to do a few things well: 1) grab your email in real time off an Exchange server; 2) make you look important; and 3) work. It seems, though, that we're working on our third major North American outage here in less than a month, with reports flowing in that users connected to BIS are having trouble with Messenger, web browsing, and apps that consume data (though email is inexplicably unaffected). Anyone out there seeing problems?[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
Also note, if you actually called customer service and complained, you might get somewhere - read fair compensation.
Chicago update for Verizon and T-Mobile: BBM down, PIN messaging down, browsing down, BIS email down, Gmail down, basically the paperweight is DOWN.
@randyschumaker
It's a perfect time to get an iPhone before Christmas. iPhones are perfect and make the perfect gifts that keep giving throughout the whole year. No BIS, no BES and no keyboard. What can possibly ever go wrong?
Have the 8530 through Verizon and have been w/o email and web access since 6:30'ish EST. Not good.
BES in Dallas (AT&T) is not working. No email, gmail, internet.
9:01PM Nothing on on my Blackberry Tour works except I can still make calls. Who does that anymore though?
My BlackBerry Bold (AT&T) seems to have conked out around 6pm Eastern. My browser, email and Facebook applications are all still dead. The cell phone works, that's it. Email works from my laptop, so I know it's not my wi-fi or ISP.
@yeeericm i got a BlackBerry Bold 9700 from AT&T TODAY. my first BlackBerry and this is my initial experience. i love the phone but this is not a good first impression. especially when im paying $50 a month for the data and text package.
BB Tour on Sprint in Detroit, Michigan. Email, FB, Gtalk on and off all day. Still not back.
this is sad, twice in a month
Still down!!!!
@Shlooky
That's what she said.
tmo nyc, down since 6pm BES.
DOWN IN PANAMA!
Checking in from Cincinnati.
BES had around a 10 minute delay or so from 4PM -7:30PM ET at which time absolutely everything died. No browser (no big loss), no BES, no BBM, no POP mail. Everything is still down and RIM support will give me no ETA on a resolution.
I'd have to agree that the only advantage a Blackberry provides is for corporate users to have solid, easily managed, more or less instant push email access via BES. Every Blackberry I've tried is pretty mediocre as a smartphone in all other respects.
These outages are making me fiend for a full featured and fully functional ActiveSync client for Android. I'm getting pretty sick of getting my ass chewed on by half of the enterprise because RIM can't keep their services up...
Northern Illinois experiencing BB outage voice and text only
My Blackberry Tour has been without Blackberry Email and Web Browsing since 12/21/09. As of 9:50 PM 12/22/09 the Blackberry Network isn't working in Austin, Texas. I have friends with AT&T which are on Blackberry who tell me their email and browsing hasnt been working. Maybe it's time to dump Blackberry, as its becoming less and less dependable.
All data service is down in Lansing, Michigan...
BES users are not synchronizing data and unable to use web as of ~7:10 pm Mountain Standard Time.
I'm dead in the water. : (
Voice and SMS only working in Tulsa,OK on AT&T
somebody told me it was gonna be down for 21 hrs total... i dont know where they got that info... but im pretty miffed that i have no svc at all.
This is terrible, the world is coming to an end:
http://reallychill.org/updates/breaking-newscellphone-data-networks-go-down-forcing-unprecedented-reports-of-awkward-phone-conversations/
@shawn123 Awesome. But, yes...this is the basic reaction.
For me, email is down (both blackberry and gmail), internet is down, and BBmessaging and AIM are down as well.
I got no data at all now, not even the BB logo after my 3G (Bold 9700) This is crazy, again? I usually blame T-Mobile but this time its just Blackberry once again this month, I hope this is because of some big update, pray!!
yeah im in mass and its down. I couldnt believe that this might be another outage so i didnt bother checking. but then i got so frustrated i checked engadget. So ridiculous. I have so many problems with my tour.
yes, down globally it appears. It used to send a prompt to reconcile, but I oticed that doesn't pop up anymore.
Beleive it or not lots of us still make and get calls, especially for work, but clients require emails, and files also, so this is very annoying.
-still nothing over here in dc. Oh well, I'm by my pc now. Hopefully it will be working by tomorrow morning.
help, somebody roofied my bberry!
Tmobile, Verizon, Sprint and AT&T blackberrys are affected in Chicago. NO email NO facebook NO bbm No internet.... since about 2pm central time....its kind of super annoying.... im trying to convince myself its worth all the problems when its working......its getting harder and harder everytime they go down....
I'm on vacation in South America and blackberry services are down
ECUADOR IS DOWN
@pbarreiro
Oh no, what happened to it?
BES in Houston is down. Here is my AT&T alert, looks like we're in for a long night:
Severity: 1-High
Description of Issue: Degradation of RIM Blackberry services Location of Issue: All Regions; All Markets and surrounding areas Start Time: Dec 22 2009 04:30 PM PST Symptoms you MAY experience: RIM Blackberry BES/BIS users may be unable to send/receive messages or may have difficulty connecting to the network.
End Time: Unknown
UPDATE: RIM is performing emergency maintenance on the RIM network which is expected to take 6-8 hours. During the maintenance little or no traffic is expected to pass. Next update will be sent after 6 AM.
Yes... as of 130am Sprint in Philadelphia says it has no idea when it will be back up...We have no Web and email.
Jim
BES on AT&T down in Dallas since 6PM CST
BES et al for TMO and VZW down in San Diego & S Dakota. Now, that said, I am enjoying the peace. Reading these comments is making me crazy.
1:13 AM in Chicago...BB Messenger, Browser, and E-Mail still down. Thank you RIM for giving me a better excuse to pay Verizon's $350 to end you. Your services are no longer needed.
11:52 PM PST in Mountain View: Emails working (send and receive). Internet still down !!
And this why i switched from a Sidekick?
San Jose, California here. Just got an email that had been first received by Gmail a few hours ago. So I assume the email service is back up, but the 3G is still down :(
Los Angeles, 12:18AM PT. Just began receiving a couple emails that were sent 6 hours ago. If mail for 32 Million users is queued up in the RIM mail servers, it may take a while to get those processed and delivered...
...assuming the email system is back online.
st. louis, mo
no e-mail, bbm, internet, apps, etc and can only text/call
ran diagnostics test, said i'm only connected to at&t, no bb services
Data services are down in Portland, Oregon. Email is sporadic, and voice is unaffected. I wonder if I could get AT&T to reimburse me for the loss of data service...hey, a guy can dream, can't he?
Other than this, I have to say that my experience with BB services has been ok. Most definitely not problem free, in fact BB problems is what made me switch carriers from VZW to AT&T. This is my first major roadblock since switching, but I don't expect it to be the last. No different than getting a similar smart phone. I don't expect my desktop comps (non-mission critical) to run without glitches at all. I expect that when they do have a design/engineering problem. they come forward (eventually) and propose a fix for it. (Maybe even call it a "feature")
Nashville TN on TMO and everything is up for me.
verizon internet and all chat down in Columbus, Ohio since about 7pm yesterday
Los Angeles (again). 8:03AM PT. All emails that were sent during the outage have been delivered to the BB (Sprint), all 3G services are back online. I've used BB's for 9 years. I can now go back to taking it for granted again.
Sprint seems back on track now (NY). This is a good reason for all BBs to have wifi - at least then you could get your emails when there is an outage. Sheeesh. Not very reliable at all. Shame on you RIM. You should be ashamed.
@ronno
You cant use the email client with wifi. It goes through the BB server(which is down for me)