Verizon Wireless was the first major carrier to launch its super fast 4G LTE network in the United States. Being the first comes with its fair share of problems, however. Earlier this week Verizon’s 4G LTE network suffered its third major outage in the month of December. In an interview with GigaOM, Verizon Wireless vice president of Network Engineering Mike Haberman responded with:

Being the pioneers, we’re going to experience some growing pains. These issues we’ve been experiencing are certainly regrettable but they were unforeseeable.

Haberman went on to blame all three outages on the process of replacing old signaling architectures used in 2G and 3G networks while on 4G, known as the IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS). Ever since April, IMS has caused problems leading to network failures. After fixing various software bugs, users were able to again reconnect to 3G EV-DO and 4G LTE services. However, the IMS glitches returned in December and have caused the company headaches. The first outage on December 7th was caused by the failure of a back-up communications database. The second, last week, was the result of an IMS element not responding properly, while Wednesday’s outage was caused by two IMS elements not communicating properly, Haberman told GigaOM. In a statement released by the company, Verizon says that it will not rest until their 4G LTE network performs at the highest levels that customers have come to expect.

Read [GigaOM] Read [Verizon]

We received a number of reports this morning from Verizon Wireless customers complaining that the carrier’s 4G LTE network was down in various parts of the country, and Verizon has confirmed that the network is now returning to normal after the outage. “Verizon Wireless 4G LTE service is returning to normal this morning after company engineers worked to resolve an issue with the 4G network during the early morning hours today,” a Verizon spokesperson said in a statement to The Verge. “Throughout this time, 4G LTE customers were able to make voice calls and send and receive text messages. The 3G data network operated normally.” This is the second time that Verizon Wireless’s 4G LTE network has suffered a nationwide outage this year.

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RIM acknowledged that many its users have reported delayed message deliveries on Wednesday, although it remains unclear what the culprit might be. “We’re getting reports that some users are experiencing delays,” RIM said on its official Twitter account. “We’re investigating and will update you ASAP.” A BlackBerry outage affected millions worldwide for several days during October. The downtime resulted in a class-action lawsuit and could cost RIM an estimated $100 million. 

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Apple’s new virtual personal assistant Siri is currently suffering from a major outage — the first extended outage since the service launched on October 14th. Requests made to Siri are met with a period of silence followed by ominous responses such as “Sorry, I am having trouble connecting to the network,” or “Uh oh, something’s wrong. Can you try again?” Reports of the outage began hitting the Web early Thursday afternoon and as of 6:30 p.m. EDT, Siri had not yet recovered. Some claim that a reboot resolves the issue but most still appear to be unable to use the service. Unique to Apple’s iPhone 4S, Siri is an intelligent digital assistant that answers questions and performs tasks at the user’s request. Believed by some to be a driving force behind the success of the iPhone 4S, Siri allows users to speak conversationally and it performs functions not currently supported by voice control features on competing platforms.

Thanks, Grizzly Atoms

BlackBerry users have filed a class-action lawsuit against Research In Motion after the company’s massive service outage earlier this month, the Financial Post reported on Wednesday. The suit was officially filed by the Consumer Law Group in the Quebec Superior Court “on behalf of individuals who have BlackBerry smartphones and who pay for a monthly data plan but were unable to access their email, BlackBerry Messenger service (BBM), and/or Internet for the period of October 11 to 14, 2011.” It specifically focuses on “RIM’s failure to take action to either directly compensate BlackBerry users or to indirectly compensate BlackBerry users by arranging for wireless service providers to refunds their customers and to take full responsibility for these damages.” RIM’s BlackBerry outage lasted several days and spanned around the globe. The company’s co-CEO Mike Lazaridis offered a public apology and RIM has offered limited free tech support in addition to a number of free “premium apps” as compensation, however, RIM currently has no plans to reimburse customers for the downtime.

[Via Financial Post]

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Police in Abu Dhabi and Dubai said the number of reported traffic accidents plunged during Research In Motion’s recent three-day BlackBerry outage. According to The National, accidents fell 20% in Dubai and 40% in Abu Dhabi. Lieutenant General Dahi Khalfan Tamim from the Dubai Police department said his force saw the largest decrease among young drivers and men. “The accidents that occur from the use of these devices range between minor and moderate ones, but at times they are deadly,” Tamim explained. “Absolutely nothing has happened in the past week in terms of killings on the road and we’re really glad about that,” Brigadier General Al Harethi, from Abu Dhabi’s police department said. “People are slowly starting to realize the dangers of using their phone while driving. The roads became much safer when BlackBerry stopped working.” According to The National, there is typically a fatal accident in Abu Dhabi every two days and an accident every three minutes in Dubai.

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Research In Motion announced on Monday that it will soon offer BlackBerry users 12 free “premium” applications through December 31, 2011 as an apology for its recent BlackBerry service outage. In addition, the company said it will provide its enterprise customers with one month of free technical support. “Our global network supports the communications needs of more than 70 million customers,” RIM Co-CEO Mike Lazaridis said in a statement. “We truly appreciate and value our relationship with our customers. We’ve worked hard to earn their trust over the past 12 years, and we’re committed to providing the high standard of reliability they expect, today and in the future. We are taking immediate and aggressive steps to help prevent something like this from happening again.” The free applications include SIMS 3, Bejeweled, N.O.V.A, Texas Hold’em Poker 2, Bubble Bash 2, Photo Editor Ultimate, DriveSafe.ly Pro, iSpeech Translator Pro, Drive Safe.ly Enterprise, Nobex Radio Premium, Shazam Encore and Vlingo Plus: Virtual Assistant. Read on for the full press release from RIM.

Research In Motion Offers Free Premium Apps to Customers Following Service Interruptions

Waterloo, ON – Research In Motion (RIM) (NASDAQ: RIMM; TSX: RIM) announced today that a selection of premium apps worth a total value of more than US $100 will be offered free of charge to subscribers as an expression of appreciation for their patience during the recent service disruptions. The apps will be made available to customers over the coming weeks on BlackBerry® App World™ and will continue to be available until December 31, 2011.*

“Our global network supports the communications needs of more than 70 million customers,” said RIM Co-CEO Mike Lazaridis. “We truly appreciate and value our relationship with our customers.  We’ve worked hard to earn their trust over the past 12 years, and we’re committed to providing the high standard of reliability they expect, today and in the future.”

The complete selection of premium apps will become available to download at BlackBerry App World over a period of four weeks beginning Wednesday, October 19th.  The selections over this period will include the following (with more to come):

• SIMS 3 – Electronic Arts
• Bejeweled – Electronic Arts
• N.O.V.A. – Gameloft
• Texas Hold’em Poker 2 – Gameloft
• Bubble Bash 2 – Gameloft
• Photo Editor Ultimate – Ice Cold Apps
• DriveSafe.ly Pro – iSpeech.org
• iSpeech Translator Pro – iSpeech.org
• Drive Safe.ly Enterprise – iSpeech.org
• Nobex Radio™ Premium – Nobex
• Shazam Encore – Shazam
• Vlingo Plus: Virtual Assistant – Vlingo

RIM’s enterprise customers will also be offered one month of free Technical Support.  Current customers will be offered a complimentary one month extension of their existing Technical Support contract, and customers who do not currently have a Technical Support contract will be offered a one month trial of RIM’s BlackBerry Technical Support Services – Enhanced Support, free of charge.  Additional details about the program and information about how to register will be available at www.blackberry.com/enterpriseoffer.

“We are grateful to our loyal BlackBerry customers for their patience,” added Lazaridis. “We have apologized to our customers and we will work tirelessly to restore their confidence.  We are taking immediate and aggressive steps to help prevent something like this from happening again.”

Research In Motion’s recent BlackBerry outage was the worst in the company’s history, leaving BlackBerry users in the Middle East, Europe, parts of South America, Canada, Africa and the United States without service for a total of three days. This major outage could cost the Canadian vendor more than $100 million, Financial Post reported on Friday. The costs include refunds RIM may have to issue carriers for monthly fees it collects for each BlackBerry user. “Given a large portion of global traffic looks potentially affected we believe that a 5% impact to service fee revenue is plausible though likely worse case,” JPMorgan Chase analyst Rod Hall said. Read on for more.

Scotia Capital analyst Gus Papageorgiou estimated that lost revenues could be in the ballpark of $117.7 million, or $0.22 per share, but that RIM should have the crisis under control by the weekend. The costs however, do not include the possibility of shaken faith from RIM’s top enterprise users, who rely on BlackBerry products and services for day-to-day operations. RIM co-chief Mike Lazaridis issued a public apology on Thursday in which co-CEO Mike Lazaridis said RIM was “working around the clock to fix this,” and the company stated a few hours later that service had been fully restored.

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Research In Motion co-CEO Mike Lazaridis confirmed on a conference call Thursday morning that all BlackBerry services have been restored globally. The co-chief had issued a video apology to customers earlier on Thursday, offering reassurances that the company was doing everything in its power to resolve service interruptions that had extended into their fourth day. A switch failure followed by a large backlog of emails is being blamed for the service outage, which affected millions of BlackBerry users across Europe, the Middle East, Africa, India, North America and South America. RIM said it is putting fixes in place to prevent a recurrence of this issue in the future, and it is currently considering how it might reimburse carriers and BlackBerry users for the disruption caused by this week’s outages.

Research In Motion co-CEO Mike Lazaridis on Thursday issued a public apology to BlackBerry subscribers around the world following a major service outage that has now entered its fourth day. “I apologize for the service outages this week,” Lazaridis said in a video posted to YouTube by RIM. “We’ve let many of you down.” He continued, “You expect better from us. And I expect better from us.” After initially believing the issue causing the outage was resolved late Monday, service interruptions in Europe, the Middle East and Africa persisted on Tuesday when RIM explained that the outage was due to a core switch failure. RIM said on Wednesday that a massive backlog of emails was causing tremendous strain on its systems as the service outage spilled over into India as well as North and South America. “We are working around the clock to fix this,” the Lazaridis said, continuing to explain that the company is now approaching “normal BlackBerry service levels” in Europe, the Middle East, India and Africa. The co-chief warned that RIM is not out of the woods yet, however, and there may be some continued instability as the company works toward fully resolving the issues. Lazaridis’ video apology follows below.

UPDATE: Mike Lazaridis announced on a press call at 10:00 a.m. Eastern Time Thursday morning that all BlackBerry services have been restored.

After having initially said the issues were resolved following one day of service interruptions, millions of BlackBerry users across Europe, the Middle East, Africa and even some areas in South America still find themselves without access to the Wen or messaging services for the third consecutive day. Research In Motion confirmed earlier that a bug on a Blackberry server was responsible for knocking millions offline on Monday, and the Waterloo, Ontario-based smartphone maker elaborated on Tuesday that the continued interruption was caused by a core switch failure. RIM now says the outage has caused a large backlog of data that must be cleared before service can return to normal. No firm timeline has been issued.

UPDATE: Our inbox is starting to get hit with reports of service interruptions in the U.S. and Canada as well. Is your BlackBerry not working this morning? Leave us a comment below and let us know.

BlackBerry users across Europe, the Middle East and Africa again find themselves without service on Tuesday as a bug that knocked millions of users offline on Monday has seemingly resurfaced. Research In Motion announced early Tuesday morning that BlackBerry service across the EMEA region had been restored, but the Associated Press later reported that Internet and messaging services for users across the region are again offline. The report was later confirmed by several carriers including T-Mobile UK, Vodafone UK and Etisalat in the United Arab Emirates. The cause of the outage is unclear, however a report on Monday attributed the massive service interruption to a bug on a RIM server in England.

UPDATE: RIM has stated that Tuesday’s outage was due to a core switch failure.

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BlackBerry users in Africa, the Middle East and Europe have been without service since 11:00 a.m. Monday, The Telegraph reports. A bug on Research In Motion’s server in Slough, England is to blame and it appears to have impaired all users, independent of carrier or device. RIM has not issued a statement on the matter. “There is an issue with BlackBerry services at present,” a T-Mobile UK representative said on Twitter. “RIM [is] investigating this at present.” Additionally, Batelco, a wireless carrier in Bahrain, issued a statement that confirmed the service was out in the entire country and explained the issue is being “dealt with by BlackBerry providers in Canada.”

Thanks Adam!

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Skype confirmed early Thursday morning that some users may experience connection issues signing into the service or making Skype calls. The company says it has identified the problem and has posted instructions for fixing the issue. The good news is it doesn’t look like the outage will be as massive as the one last December, which was later blamed on an overloaded cluster of support servers. If you’re experiencing issues now, hit the jump for some quick fix instructions from Skype. Just don’t blame it on Microsoft, alright?

Update: Skype says Windows users should update their client to the newest version for an immediate and easier fix. A Max OS X update is also on the way.

Windows Vista and Windows 7

1.    Close Skype.
a.    Right-click the Skype icon in the system tray (at the bottom right of the screen)
b.    Choose Quit.
2.    Ensure that “Show hidden files and folders” is switched on.
a.    Click Start, type run and press Enter.
b.    Type control folders and click OK.
c.    Select the View tab and ensure relevant entry is enabled.
3.    Locate the shared.xml file.
a.    Click Start, type run and press Enter.
b.    Type %appdata%\skype and click OK.
c.    Delete the shared.xml file.
4.    Restart Skype. The shared.xml file will be recreated.

Windows XP

1.    Close Skype.
a.    Right-click the Skype icon in the system tray (at the bottom right of the screen)
b.    Choose Quit.
2.    Ensure that “Show hidden files and folders” is switched on.
a.    Click Start and then Run…
b.    Type control folders and click OK.
c.    Select the View tab and ensure relevant entry is enabled.
3.    Locate the shared.xml file.
a.    Click Start and then Run…
b.    Type %appdata%\skype and click OK.
c.    Delete the shared.xml file.
4.    Restart Skype. The shared.xml file will be recreated.

Mac OS X

1. Quit Skype.
2. Go to the folder ~/Library/Application Support/Skype/
3. Delete the file shared.xml (it will be recreated once you open Skype again, this is fine).
4. Start Skype.

Please note that the ~ sign means your home folder. You can find your home folder by opening Finder and selecting Go > Home from the menu bar or pressing Command (Apple), Shift and H keys at the same time.

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Microsoft has confirmed that its Windows Phone 7 platform on Friday suffered its second major outage this week. Early on Friday, users began reporting that they could not access Xbox LIVE services from their Windows Phone 7 devices. BGR had independently confirmed the issue on two separate devices, and now Microsoft has acknowledged the outage via its official Windows Phone support team Twitter account. “It’s a new issue that users are unable to access Xbox LIVE features at this time,” a Microsoft official posted to the Twitter account. Earlier this week, Microsoft’s Windows Marketplace suffered an outage that prevented users from accessing the company’s mobile app store during a scheduled maintenance that was extended due to complications.

[Via winrumors]

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