BlackBerry users throughout the world experienced service delays this week due to a core switch failure in the company’s infrastructure, according to the BlackBerry website.

Millions of BlackBerry customers experienced delays in sending and receiving emails and BlackBerry Messages, as well as slow Internet use, according to the website.

Robin Bienfait, the chief information officer, apologized Wednesday in a service update on the website.

‘You’ve depended on us for reliable, real-time communications, and right now we’re letting you down,’ Bienfait said. ‘We are taking this very seriously and have people around the world working around the clock to address this situation.’

Service issues continued to affect users in North America on Wednesday night. Syracuse University students complained of service delays as well.

Natalie Jones, a graduate student in the public health master’s program, said she realized there was a problem with her BlackBerry after she sat down at her computer and saw a whole string of emails that she never received on her phone.

Jones was still able to make calls, but her BBMs were delayed and she wasn’t receiving emails — one of the main reasons she bought a BlackBerry in the first place, she said.

Jones said there were things that she had to take care of Wednesday and the problems prevented her from doing so.

‘It’s frustrating because it makes me look irresponsible,’ she said.

Cyan Grandison, a sophomore information technology major, also experienced delays, which proved to be an inconvenience. Grandison said her BlackBerry wasn’t receiving emails and was unable to access the Internet. Without her computer on her, Grandison said she had no way of knowing whether her teachers had contacted her.

‘It’s brutal,’ she said. ‘I hope they get it back up soon. It’s kind of my life.’

BlackBerry officials issued a statement attributing service problems to a core switch failure within the Research in Motion Ltd. infrastructure. RIM is the company that introduced the BlackBerry.

The statement said that although the system is designed to failover to a backup switch, the failover did not function as previously tested. A large backlog of messaging data was generated as a result.

egsawyer@syr.edu 

Published on October 12, 2011 at 12:00 pm

Contact Liz: egsawyer@syr.edu | @3sawyer