BlackBerry Data Service Outage Affects Multiple Carriers

[MacRumors]

Apple's largest competitor in the smartphone market, RIM, today experienced a data outage that spanned multiple carriers.

RIM said BlackBerry subscribers "may be unable to send or receive messages and may also be unable to "register their device, roam in another location, or use other services such as Internet browsing."

The outage began at roughly 3:30pm and affected all North American carriers, but not necessarily all Blackberry users. Voice and SMS was reportedly unaffected. At this time, RIM reports that service has been restored and an investigation into the outage is ongoing.

Today marks the second major BlackBerry-specific service outage since the iPhone launched in June 2007. While iPhones have occasionally been susceptible to EDGE service interruptions, there have yet to be any iPhone-specific outages.

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[puckhead193]

my verizon pearl was fine around that time. It was slower then normal to receive emails but they still got through.....

[zflauaus]

During these outages, the only thing that is affected (at least in my case, on the Verizon Pearl) is BWS (Web service and email). Regular TCP connections like those using Opera Mini and other programs you can set to use TCP will work fine.

[helmsc]

could something like this happen to the iPhones?

[projectle]

There are plenty of things that could happen to the iPhone that would be just like this failure...

Let's say Visual Voicemail being offline... GASP!

Either that, or maybe push e-mail being down from Yahoo or Google Maps not being able to connect to the server.

On second thought, all of those things have happened several times.

[Mebsat]

Originally Posted by projectle

There are plenty of things that could happen to the iPhone that would be just like this failure...

Let's say Visual Voicemail being offline... GASP!

But Visual Voicemail is not centrally served, it is on every ATT voicemail server, right? So while one server in a particular place might fail, which I have had happen with BellSouth, it would be isolated.

Is this a good assumption or is there some central component to Visual Voicemail?

[erandall38]

Originally Posted by MacRumors

Apple's largest competitor in the smartphone market, RIM

Is RIM actually considered a true competitor of the iPhone?

[Mebsat]

Why is there a single point of failure for all Blackberries across multiple carriers? Does this knock out all enterprise BES users too or can you still check accounts manually but no push?

[aviationwiz]

That single point of failure is RIM's Network Operations Center, which is what provides the true push email system that RIM has.

However, this outage did not effect all users. I can speak for myself with VZW in Minneapolis, and a friend of mine on TMO in Lawrence, KS, that neither of us had any issues today.

Like projectle said, similar things have happened with the iPhone, however, since RIM is the market king for such devices and used by such a broad user base, when there is a RIM issue, that mainstream news picks up on it.

@erandall38, I whole-heartedly agree, I don't think the BlackBerry is a true competitor to the iPhone at all, nor is the iPhone a true competitor to the BlackBerry. The BlackBerry is a whole different ball game from the iPhone, some don't like it as much, or others, such as myself, like it more.

[winterspan]

Can anyone clarify why the Blackberry push email service/operations center would be tied in with Web browsing? Does web browsing on a blackberry go through a blackberry server web proxy? What would be the use of that?

[michaelsviews]

Originally Posted by erandall38

Is RIM actually considered a true competitor of the iPhone?

1. RIM is first
2. iPhone
3. Windows OS PDA's

Some one has to be screwing around with RIM or its there new software for the servers that they just released

[BiikeMike]

Originally Posted by MacRumors

Apple's largest competitor in the smartphone market, RIM,

Is that a joke? They are serving TOTALLY different markets!

[longofest]

Okay, a few people have had issue with my claim that Apple is competing with RIM and the Blackberry.

Are the two devices different? Yes. The iPhone is definitely more consumer friendly than the blackberry. Also, the iPhone definitely does some things much better than the BlackBerry, whereas the BlackBerry has push-email established, with a huge government market installed.

However, we've run more than a few articles on here about how the iPhone is making inroads to corporate markets. The two devices are both considered smartphones by not only Apple but by marketshare surveyers, which puts them into competition with each other. Latest surveys indicate that Apple is #2 behind RIM, so RIM is who they need to catch up to.

[aristobrat]

Originally Posted by aviationwiz

However, this outage did not effect all users. I can speak for myself with VZW in Minneapolis, and a friend of mine on TMO in Lawrence, KS, that neither of us had any issues today.

Are you guys using BIS or BES? From reading at blackberryforums.com, pretty much every BES-admin over there reported their North American BES' SRPs were dropping during the afternoon/evening, preventing emails from being delivered. I know at 6PM ET, the small 250-user BES I administer had nearly 1000 emails queued up.

Like projectle said, similar things have happened with the iPhone

iPhones do not route their email through a central service like BlackBerrys do. If gmail goes down because something at Google is screwed up, it doesn't affect .Mac or Yahoo mail. The only example I can think of for the iPhone involving email that's similiar to what happened again to RIM yesterday would be if AT&T's EDGE network failed across all of North America, and that'd get plenty of coverage.

[kristokn]

Originally Posted by BiikeMike

Is that a joke? They are serving TOTALLY different markets!

Following up what the other poster already said. They both do all the same things -- I'm confused why you think it's a joke. I have a Blackberry Curve through work that has a 4gb microSD card (was only $40) .. has a media player for music/video, acts as an external drive when I plug it in and I can throw videos/mp3s/photos on it. It's actually easier to manage files in that regard than my ipod touch.

At least where I live, in silly-con valley, I know just as many "consumers" with blackberries as I do people with corporate blackberries.

-K

[BiikeMike]

Originally Posted by kristokn

Following up what the other poster already said. They both do all the same things -- I'm confused why you think it's a joke. I have a Blackberry Curve through work that has a 4gb microSD card (was only $40) .. has a media player for music/video, acts as an external drive when I plug it in and I can throw videos/mp3s/photos on it. It's actually easier to manage files in that regard than my ipod touch.

At least where I live, in silly-con valley, I know just as many "consumers" with blackberries as I do people with corporate blackberries.

-K

Blackberrys are the standard in business. The iPhone is a GREAT device, but not so much as a business device. The iPhone has three BIG things working against it to make it any type of competitor with RIM. #1 is email. No one can hold a candle to RIM's email service. I use mine for 3gmail accounts, and 1 exchange. My mail hits my 8830 sometimes a few minutes before it will hit my desktop. The iPhone can't touch RIM when it comes to email. I work with top level execs that are getting hundreds and hundreds (up to 1000) emails a day that they handle on their Blackberrys.

The second BIG thing the iPhone has working against it is it's camera. That counts out every lawyer, government worker, secured building employee, etc. That is a HUGE amount of people.

Third is it's security software. The iPhone is obviously not a secure device no matter how you slice it. Blackberrys have all sorts of security varification available, and IT departments can administer, monitor, and push out updates to them. I work very closely with people in the banking business, and their computers, blackberrys, etc are locked down tighter than you would believe.

These are just three things of which any one of them would count the iPhone out of the corporate world. Is it a great device? you bet! can it hold a candle to RIM devices in the corporate world? not a chance.

Like I mentioned, I work closely with high level execs of one of the largest securities firms in this country, and we run meetings with hundreds of people at them. Every single person in that room has a blackberry that is company mandated, company controlled, and company supported. A lot of them also have iPhones for personal use, but the company won't even touch them.

[kristokn]

I'd agree with you Mike, I think I was taken a back by some people assuming the iPhone is consumer and Blackberry is not or corporate only. You can see all the paparazzi photos of Lindsay Lohan partying holding a blackberry to know it's definitely not a corporate only device! hehe

My company uses a blackberry exchange server and I have to say that it rocks, when it's up -- unlike yesterday. I usually get meetings/emails on my blackberry before it arrives in Outlook on my laptop.

Either way, I love both devices. If my company weren't sponsoring Blackberries for everyone and the iPhone had good MS exchange support... I'd probably be using an iPhone.

[bigandy]

I rather preferred El Reg's headline:

BlackBerry takes Monday afternoon off