RIM's BlackBerry services hit by fresh problems

RIM's BlackBerry Internet Services are back down again for many users around the world, just hours after the end of an outage that lasted the best part of a day.

The first recent spell of downtime for RIM's consumer-focused BIS network struck Europe, the Middle East and Africa on Monday morning, lasting until early on Tuesday morning when services were resumed. However, despite RIM's assurances that "the issue was resolved", many users are now reporting further problems with web surfing and BlackBerry Messenger (BBM).

"Dear Customers, following RIM's announcement, we have detected that BBM is still unstable for some users. We will keep you updated," Vodafone Egypt wrote in a tweet around 12:30pm BST. A later tweet from the operator referred to a "BlackBerry partial outage".

Meanwhile, T-Mobile UK tweeted: "There may still be some intermittent issues with Blackberry services, RIM are working on this at present."

RIM, which is yet to explain even the first outage, had not provided any comment on the fresh problems at the time of writing. Reports suggested that the first outage had something to do with RIM's Slough datacentre.

UPDATE (4:10pm BST): RIM has finally admitted the new outage. "Some users in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, India, Brazil, Chile, and Argentina are experiencing messaging and browsing delays," the company said. "We are working to restore normal service as quickly as possible. We apologise for any inconvenience this has caused."