BlackBerry users suffer email and messaging service outage

Some BlackBerry users across Canada and the Asia Pacific region have been unable to use their email and messaging services since Tuesday morning.

BlackBerry confirmed shortly after noon ET —  about three hours after the problems began — that the service issue was affecting users in those two regions.

"Our technical team has identified the potential cause of the issue and has reduced its impact on customers’ service," Lisette Kwong, senior manager of corporate communications, write in an email to CBC News.

"The team will continue to work towards a full resolution as quickly as possible.  We apologize to any customers who may be affected by this issue."

According to the website Canadianoutages.com, where smartphone users can report problems, the issues began around 9 a.m. ET today. The outage appears not to be affecting users of BlackBerry 10.

Customers of different carriers in several provinces, including Ontario, Quebec, Manitoba, B.C. and Nova Scotia have reported the problems.

One user, Sameer Hasham, said he had reached BlackBerry tech support, which confirmed that the outage was affecting all BB Services except for BlackBerry 10.

A BlackBerry 10 user confirmed that he was not having problems.