By Sharla Sikes

On Monday, BlackBerry users across America found themselves without e-mail service in a massive outage.

Caused when BlackBerry maker Research In Motion Ltd. attempted to expand its network, the outage shook users’ confidence in their handhelds. RIM routes all e-mails through just a few locations; the company hoped to expand its central hub in an effort to serve an increasing network of users.  RIM describes the blackout as “intermittent delays,” and says no voice or text messages were permanently lost.

RIM says it is “continuing to investigate the exact cause” of the outage and will provide additional information “as soon as we are able to verify the events that prompted the interruption.”

The outage, the second in less than a year, began in midafternoon Eastern time, and continued for several hours. It reportedly affected all wireless carriers. Zenprise, a provider of Blackberry company software, conducted tests and announced that one of two IP addresses accessing the RIM network were refusing connections.

“Everyone’s in crisis because they’re all picking away at their BlackBerrys and nothing’s happening,” Garth Turner, a member of the Canadian Parliament, said during a caucus meeting. “It’s almost like cutting the phone cables or a total collapse in telegraph lines a century ago. It just isolates people in a way that’s quite phenomenal.”

Some 12 million users worldwide have BlackBerries. Monday’s blackout will seriously shake the confidence of users who rely on RIM’s much-touted dependable service. BlackBerry outages have thus far been “rare,” but users have little tolerance for any glitches in their service.

“I’m mad — it’s enough already,” Stuart Gold, who said he gets 1,000 e-mails a day as director of field marketing for Web analytics company Omniture Inc., told the Associated Press. “I don’t know what happened, I don’t care what happened. They need to save their excuses for someone who cares.”

Some of the frustration may date back to last April, the second most recent BlackBerry glitch. The company drew its customers’ ire by waiting “hours” to announce the problem, and sending out a “confusing” report two days later.

It’s possible that BlackBerry users may look into competing devices after the outages have shaken customer confidence. Gartner Inc. analyst Phillip Redman told Bloomberg.com that many may look for e-mail services with more flexibility and user control, such as the Apple iPhone or devices using Microsoft products.

“We see quite a bit of growth for Windows Mobile e-mail,” said Redman, who is based in Boston and lost his BlackBerry access yesterday. “If BlackBerry service outages become more frequent, then that growth could accelerate.”

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