Thousands of South African expats in the UK, and mobile users, have been left furious after the loss of service on their Blackberry handsets today

A major fault at RIM, the service providers for Blackberry, has left millions of users worldwide unable to use their handsets properly....

Users in Europe, Africa and the Middle East have found themselves unable to browse the web, use instant messaging or access other web-based features such as their email accounts.

The Telegraph in the UK reported that the glitch appeared at around 11am UK time and has persisted throughout the day.

No comment has been made by RIM, with no spokesperson available. However, regional providers, such as T-Mobile in the UK and Batelco in Bahrain, have been stating on their Twitter feeds that the problem lies with Blackberry service providers in Canada, making clear to their customers that it is not a regional problem.

A spokesperson from BlackBerry said: 'We are working to resolve an issue currently impacting some BlackBerry subscribers in Europe, Middle East and Africa.'
.The BBM messaging service, which enables BlackBerry users to send messages to each other for free, is very popular, and a major reason many younger users own the smartphone.

Currently, many users are reporting that they can only send text messages on their device, which comes at a cost.

BlackBerry has apologised for the ongoing problems.

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Read more: http://www.metro.co.uk/tech/878134-blackberry-services-down-cutting-off-...