WATERLOO, Ontario, April 18 (UPI) -- BlackBerry e-mail service was slowly restored Wednesday after an overnight system failure blocked North American e-mails, its Canadian manufacturer said. The cause of the problem was "under review," wireless handheld device maker Research In Motion Ltd. said.
RIM, of Waterloo, Ont., said the huge backlog of messages was initially sent out in stages, rather than rushing them through all at once, so the system would not crash. As a result, many e-mails were delivered with delays.
A recording at RIM's customer-support center said the company expected BlackBerry service "to be fully functioning soon." AT T Wireless, the world's largest seller of BlackBerry devices, which worked with RIM to resolve the issue, said service began being restored around 6 a.m.
EDT. RIM added 1.02 million subscriber accounts in its fourth fiscal quarter that ended March 3, driving its total subscriber base to 8 million.
The company did not say how many subscribers it had in North America. RIM shares were down 39 cents, or 0.26 percent, at $148.
43 in mid-morning trading on the Toronto Stock Exchange after losing 9 percent in premarket trading.
