BlackBerry outage blankets North America

Consumer BlackBerry users across North America endured extended delays in email service earlier today due to some sort of technical glitch in the messaging network run by BlackBerry maker Research in Motion.

According to Bloomberg, the outage hit all consumer BlackBerry users in the US, regardless of carrier, and consumer outages were confirmed by Canadian carrier Rogers Wireless as well. Corporate users were not affected.

A spokeswoman for US carrier Sprint tells CIO Today that the outage was caused by some "routine" RIM maintenance work that occurred at around 2:00 a.m. US Central time on Thursday.

By late morning, users were slowly regaining access. "RIM has isolated and resolved the issue that was impacting some BlackBerry customers earlier this morning," reads a RIM statement. "Some customers may still experience delays as e-mail queues are processed. RIM is continuing to investigate the cause of the issue and apologizes for any inconvenience."

The outage did not affect phone service, web browsing, or text messaging.

Famously, RIM endured a 12-hour email outage in April 2007 and another lengthy outage hit the Canadian outfit in February of last year. ®