Android OS and iOS will not break down like Blackberry

BlackBerrys around the world could not get messages this week; that wouldn't happen to iPhone or Android, experts say.

(CNN) -- Here's a little secret BlackBerry doesn't want you to know:

It would be technically impossible for all Android phones or iPhones to experience a global four-day outage like the one BlackBerry saw this week, according to mobile communications experts.

Why? The answer is in the technical details of how Research in Motion -- the company that makes BlackBerry smartphones, with their click-clacking keyboards and tie-wearing owners -- handles e-mails and text messages.

Here's the gist: RIM acts as a middleman for all e-mail and BlackBerry text messages. It picks up messages from the wireless carrier and passes them on to the recipient.
BlackBerry says outage restored

Androids and iPhones don't have a middleman for texts and e-mail.

It's this BlackBerry baton-passing system that went down Monday, killing or slowing e-mail and texting services for millions of people in Europe, North America, South America, Asia, the Middle East and Africa. The ordeal lasted four days.

"It's because of the way RIM has set up the (network) architecture that is the downfall when it comes to these types of outages," said Sean Armstrong, who manages wireless communications at a large tech company. "When it's working fine, it's a great system. When it's not working fine, it's a failure."

This week, it's fair to say the system was a big ol' failure. On social media sites, some BlackBerry users said they were so upset about the outage -- the largest in the company's history -- that they were switching to Apple iOS and Google Android devices. And customer satisfaction with BlackBerry already was low.

"Add up every other thing we've ever written about why BlackBerry is dying," wrote the tech blog Gizmodo. "This is worse."

This is not to say that Androids and iPhones never experience network outages.

But they wouldn't be global. And they would be the responsibility of a particular wireless carrier -- AT&T, Sprint, Verizon and T-Mobile -- or a particular messaging system, like Gmail, Hotmail or iMessage, Apple's new in-house messaging service. Not the maker of the phone.

That makes their problems inherently more localized.

"All the stuff goes through them for some form or fashion," Nan Palmero, a writer for the site BlackBerryCool.com, said of the way BlackBerry handles messages and e-mail. That makes it possible, he said, for the global BlackBerry network to crash, which wouldn't be the case for iPhones or Androids.

RIM, however, takes issue with this analysis.

"I would not characterize that as fair," RIM's co-CEO Mike Lazaridis said at a Thursday news conference. "We run a global, secure-push environment that provides the kind of instant messaging that's made BlackBerry so compelling and so valuable."

Blackberry News Update: Blackberry is "stabilizing."

RIM founder Mike Lazaridis: "We expect continued progress..."

Blackberry's founder Mike Lazaridis has said services "are returning to normal", following a three-day global blackout.

Millions of customers worldwide had their messaging and email service disrupted with many turning to Twitter to express their anger.

In a video message on the company website Mr Lazaridis gave no date for when a full service would be restored.

He also warned that there could be more instabilities to come.

"We are now approaching normal levels in Europe, the Middle East, India and Africa," he said, although there could be possible "instabilities" as the firm continued to clear the backlog of messages and emails.

"I'd like to give an estimated time for full recovery round the world but I cannot do this at this time," he added.

RIM has been responding more quickly to customers in the last 24 hours, following criticism that it was not communicating well when the problems began.

"We know we've let many of you down. You expect more from us. I expect more from us," he said.
Users began to report loss of services mid-morning on 10 October and the problems spread around the world.

The firm is keen to be seen as sorting the problems swiftly, following confusion earlier in the week when it said services were back to normal, only to be contradicted by frustrated customers.

Robin Bienfait, chief information officer of RIM, the Canada-based owner of Blackberry, issued an apology for the ongoing issues.

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

"We believe we understand why this happened and we are working to restore normal service levels in all markets as quickly as we can."

It blamed the ongoing issues on a backlog of emails to Europe from Asia and the Americas, following a "core switch failure" in its infrastructure.

"Clearly we have a backlog in Europe... as you can imagine, with the global reach of Blackberry and people using it to contact others around the world, there's a lot of messages to Europe from Asia and the Americas," RIM software vice president David Yach told a press conference in Ottawa, Canada.

"Over time that backlog has built up and affected our other systems."

'Data backlog'

Many tweeters called on the phone firm to "sort out" the problems and get the network running again.
RIM eventually explained what had caused the problems in the first place.

"The messaging and browsing delays... in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, India, Brazil, Chile and Argentina were caused by a core switch failure within RIM's infrastructure," a company statement said.

BBC's Rory Cellan-Jones: "Blackberry has so many high profile users..."

"Although the system is designed to failover to a back-up switch, the failover did not function as previously tested.

"As a result, a large backlog of data was generated and we are now working to clear that backlog and restore normal service as quickly as possible."

The server problems are believed to have originated at RIM's UK data centre in Slough.

BlackBerry outage blamed on 'extremely critical' network failure

BlackBerry outage spreads

(CNN) -- Millions of BlackBerry users remained without service on Wednesday as a three-day network outage spread to North America, causing massive frustrations for people who rely on these smartphones for business and personal communications.

"BlackBerry subscribers in the Americas may be experiencing intermittent service delays this morning," Research in Motion, maker of BlackBerry smartphones, said in a statement. "We are working to resolve the situation as quickly as possible and we apologize to our customers for any inconvenience. We will provide a further update as soon as more information is available."

The outage now impacts people on nearly every continent, according to the company's statements.
An "extremely critical issue" on the BlackBerry network caused the outage, Stephen Bates, RIM's managing director in the U.K., told CNN's Richard Quest. He added: "We're putting all of our focus with all of our engineers and all of our network specialists on trying to understand the nature of why this backup system didn't work as it should have ..."

The service outage started on Monday with customers in the Middle East, Europe and Africa, before spreading to South America and Asia on Tuesday. On Wednesday morning it appeared to hit the United States and Canada. The outage appears primarily to affect text messaging and Internet access from the mobile phones, not necessarily their ability to place calls.

No customer e-mails have been completely lost, and they will be delivered eventually, RIM said in a press conference on Wednesday afternoon, according to CNNMoney's Julianne Pepitone.

Millions of BlackBerry users lose service

CNNMoney: RIM can't win

In a statement released Tuesday, the company said the "messaging and browsing delays being experienced by BlackBerry users in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, India, Brazil, Chile and Argentina were caused by a core switch failure within RIM's infrastructure. Although the system is designed to failover to a back-up switch, the failover did not function as previously tested."