Dear BlackBerry... blackout fury

BlackBerry services are slowly stuttering back to life this morning but the three-day blackout highlights how much we've come to depend on our handheld 'life-support' machines

BlackBerry services are slowly stuttering back to life this morning but the three-day blackout highlighted how much we've come to depend on our handheld 'life-support' machines. Customers have been without access to emails and Blackberry messenger since Monday and the makers of BlackBerry, RIM, are now facing criticism and demands for compensation following the cut off.

The company say there has been a significant improvement in service but have not yet made any comment as to whether it might offer compensation.

Apologising for interruptions and delays, RIM's chief information officer Robin Bienfait says: 'You've depended on us for reliable, real-time communications and right now we're letting you down.'

'We believe we understand why this has happened and we are working to restore normal service levels in all markets as quickly as we can,' he says.

More than 70 million BlackBerry subscribers have been affected by the breakdown in communication across the world from the UK to the USA, Africa, India and Europe.

Lord Sugar, founder of the electronics company Amstrad, left a string of posts on Twitter insisting: 'If it was my company, it would have been fixed by now.'

Piers Morgan was another famous name to be hit by the technical glitch writing on Twitter: 'One positive of the BlackBerry crisis - my personal trainer can't get hold of me.' And another joke doing the rounds on the micro-blogging site reads: 'What did one BBM user say to the other? Nothing.'

'Dear BlackBerry' remains a trending topic on Twitter as customers vent their fury over the way the situation has been handled.

Have you been affected by the BlackBerry blackout? Do you feel lost without your smartphone? Do you think we've come to depend too heavily on the such devices?

Let Marie Claire know your views by posting a comment below or join us on Twitter with the hashtag #BlackBerryblackout

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