Since Monday, UK users of Blackberry smart phones have been without email, Blackberry Messaging (BBM) and internet browsing has been very ‘hit and miss’ since Monday – the 1oth of October 2011.

For three days now UK Blackberry users have been without their phones primary functions, and now it has spread to the US. Earlier today USA users of Blackberry smart phones have also been complaining of a lack of messaging.

The problem is also thought to be affecting Africa and the Middle East. Basically Blackberry messaging systems seem to have ‘crashed’ right across the world.

Blackberry’s owner (RIM) has said that the initial problem was caused by core and back-up switch failures.

Basically, one of Research In Motion’s back-up systems didn’t do what they were supposed to when something went wrong with the service, resulting in a massive crash! The system is designed to ‘failover’ to a backup system if anything happens. This worked fine in testing, but when Blackberry actually needed it to work, it didn’t.

Mobile phones were only initially designed to call and then text, however smart phones were designed to provide so much more, hence why people who have paid a premium to get one, are not best pleased at the moment.

Blackberry is currently rates the UK’s top smart phone, up there with Google’s Android systems and Apple’s iPhones, so considering it faces such tough it’s very important in terms of the phones future, for Blackberry to sort the issues out pretty soon!

Blackberry have started a section on their website called Service Update, where users can get info on the status of what’s going on with the issue, what Blackberry are doing to get on top of it, and hopefully soon how long it should be until services are running normally again.

So what do you think? Do you have a Blackberry? Are you satisfied with your service? How do you think this will affect Blackberry’s future in the smart phone market?