Users of Genie's web based-email service have been unable to use the service since last Tuesday. They must wait until Thursday before the service is running again.

The mobile Internet business of mmO2 (formerly BT Cellnet) declined to say how many people have been hit by the outage. A spokesman would say only that Genie has 5.8 million registered users worldwide. He was also unable to comment on the nature of the problem or what measures the company has taken to keep its customers informed.

In a statement Laurence Alexander, MD, Genie UK, said: "Genie apologises to all of its users affected and any inconvenience caused.

"Our engineers are working around the clock to resolve the problem and it is our hope that a full service will be up and running by Thursday." ®