BlackBerry has finally explained to users why its service has been broken for the last two days.
The company has come under fire for failing to keep millions of users informed after the service collapsed on Monday, went offline again yesterday and remains down for many users today.
The messaging company has finally admitted that a switch failure was behind the problems, although it made no predictions about when the service might be back to normal.
“The messaging and browsing delays being experienced by BlackBerry users in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, India, Brazil, Chile and Argentina were caused by a core switch failure within RIM’s infrastructure,” the company said in a statement.
“Although the system is designed to failover to a back-up switch, the failover did not function as previously tested. As a result, a large backlog of data was generated and we are now working to clear that backlog and restore normal service as quickly as possible.”
RIM was expected to clarify the situation at its BlackBerry Innovation Forum in London today, but early indications - and RIM's Twitter feed - suggest the company is still unsure when the service will be fully operational again.
“Message delays were caused by a core switch failure in RIM's infrastructure. Sincerely sorry, but now being resolved,” the company tweeted.
UPDATED: The problems with the Blackberry smartphone system have now spread to the US, with hundreds of BBS users turning to Twitter to vent their frustration.
Having previously claimed that services had returned to normal, RIM was forced to admit that the issue has spread to North America due to the problems in other parts of the world.
"The messaging and browsing delays... in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, India, Brazil, Chile and Argentina were caused by a core switch failure within RIM's infrastructure," a company statement said. "Although the system is designed to failover to a back-up switch, the failover did not function as previously tested. As a result, a large backlog of data was generated and we are now working to clear that backlog and restore normal service as quickly as possible."
At the time of writing, millions of users are thought to be without email, web browsing and Blackberry Messaging (BBM) services.
This article originally appeared at pcpro.co.uk
