Major BlackBerry Blackout Reported
News agencies are reporting a nationwide BlackBerry smartphone blackout this afternoon, the cause of which isn’t yet known.
It also isn’t clear yet exactly how many are affected by the outage, reports the Associated Press. Some users say they have service, but wireless carriers say there is a nationwide problem. However, the Canadian Press says millions are affected in the U.S. and Canada.
Likewise, there is no word about when service is likely to be back to normal.
“Canada-based Research In Motion, maker of ubiquitous BlackBerry mobile devices that combine telephone, email, and Internet capabilities, notified AT&T on Monday afternoon of a major disruption of service.,” reports Agence France-Presse.
If the situation is anything like a widespread North American outage that affected users for up to 12 hours in April 2007, more than a few lawyers are likely to be feeling lost without their high-tech communication aide.
Recounting the situation at a Dallas legal event last year, employment attorney Mike Maslanka of Ford & Harrison told ABAJournal.com that the widespread nature of the outage was quickly apparent.
“Thank God there was free liquor there being given away, because it was able to mediate the stress I saw on several faces when it became clear their BlackBerries weren’t working,” says Maslanka, who hastened to add that he took a cab to and from the event. To get one for the return trip, however, “the problem was, I had to have the valet call me,” he adds, “because I couldn’t use my BlackBerry.”
