BlackBerry outage mania

blackberry_8800 With apologies to Peter King of Sports Illustrated (who writes a fantastic football column called Monday Morning QB for si.com) here are 5 things I think I think about the BlackBerry outage yesterday, which lasted all of three hours.

1) We are a nation of whiners. I mean, how many people’s lives were truly endangered or disrupted yesterday by the fact. Surely, people that needed to be contacted yesterday could have been reached by phone or text message or by yodelling across Parliament Hill.

1 a) Garth Turner seriously needs to get a life. The Liberal MP declared yesterday that the Liberals were in "crisis" and that the BlackBerry outage made him and fellow politicians feel "isolated." Pathetic. Mr. Turner, you’ve officially lost one vote - I am going to vote for the Tories or NDP - any other party - come spring or whenever the next fruitless election is held. Anyone or any party that can’t run a caucus meeting without functioning BlackBerrys doesn’t deserve to run the country.

2) Nonetheless, what in the name of Jim Balsillie is going on at RIM? I seem to recall a statement from Mr. Balsillie some time ago that BlackBerry outages are "very rare" or some such verbiage. These outages seem to happen at least once a year if not more. Am I wrong?

3) This is more of a question for RIM’s communications department. Why is it during BlackBerry outages, your company is silent? Is it a tacit agreement with the carriers, such as Bell Canada, that they will handle all communications matters related to BlackBerry outages? Users would like to know when service will be up and running again.

4) My BlackBerry, which runs on the BlackBerry Internet Service, ran perfectly all day. This says to me the problem is obviously located in Waterloo, Ont. where RIM’s unique network operating centre (NOC) is located. RIM - what’s the problem and is it going to affect service in future? Can RIM’s network infrastructure keep up with subscriber growth?

5) CNBC’s coverage of the BlackBerry yesterday was over the top. There are 12-million BlackBerry subscribers worldwide - a three-hour outage doesn’t deserve the same kind of coverage the war in Iraq or other world issues receive no matter how much air time you have to fill.

February 12, 2008 | Filed Under News Items and Commentary 

Comments

One Response to “BlackBerry outage mania”

  1. Danielle Restivo on February 12th, 2008 5:28 pm

    I actually found the break from my crackberry quite refreshing.

Leave a Reply