Blackberry Outage: Monday afternoon

BlackBerry Blackout Strands Users
Failure Was Second In Less Than a Year

The afternoon service failure yesterday was the second in less than a year for Research in Motion, maker of the BlackBerry mobile device and operator of its e-mail server. Phone services were not affected, a Sprint spokesman said. (By Manu Fernandez -- Associated Press)

By Cecilia Kang
Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, February 12, 2008; Page D01

As the doors closed on the Metrorail train he was riding home from work yesterday, ABC News senior political reporter Rick Klein reached for his BlackBerry to encounter his worst nightmare: no new e-mails.

Earlier, Klein had been getting hundreds of e-mails an hour for his political blog "The Note" in preparation for today's Potomac Primary. But like millions of BlackBerry users across the country, he was caught up in an afternoon blackout that lasted for more than three hours.
For Klein, being cut off from e-mail, even during his half-hour commute to his home on Capitol Hill, seemed intolerable.

"It was like being underwater without an oxygen tank. It felt like every minute was an hour," Klein said.
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Dramatic yes, but it's true... when you come to rely on email communication from your Blackberry, when it doesn't work, it's like being up that creek without that paddle...

Here's the complete Washington Post article.