BlackBerry Rules Washington No Glitches for RIM, While US Carriers Had "Issues"

Thumbnail image for verizon-wireless-cow1.jpgIt looks like the BlackBerry rules in Washington. Even with an avalanche of traffic RIM's BlackBerry service worked just fine.

According to the Canadian Press, RIM servers were able to deal with the heavy loads and traffic on BlackBerry smartphones during the inauguration and festivities following.

RIM spokeswoman Marisa Conway said RIM's services were normal throughout the day.

Major U.S. carriers Verizon Wireless, AT&T and T-Mobile said that they didn't have many problems.  Verizon reported three to  five times its normal volume. Sprint Nextel saw its voice, text and data service traffic more than triple from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m. EST in the Washington D.C. area. T-Mobile had ten times its normal volume in the hour before noon.

While CNN reported people they talked to had problems with calling, emailing and talking to family in other parts of the country. One woman couldn't contact her friends and didn't have back-up plan.

Carriers installed mobile units COWs (Cells on Wheels) and other equipment to deal with the loads.

"Apart from BlackBerrys nothing was working consistently," said
Jonathan Daly, who said his iPhone, on the AT&T network, had
intermittent service throughout the ceremony and in the hours
afterwards.

Twitter, couldn't handle the crush
of posts. The website was
intermittently down.

IDG News Service reported "mobile phone networks around Washington, D.C., experienced periodic
overload during inauguration ceremonies... but by mid-afternoon the congestion seemed to dissipate."

Meanwhile, reports Tuesday indicated that President Obama will be keeping his BlackBerry at the White House, according to the Canadian Press.  Although there have been no reports of anyone seeing the new president with his BlackBerry. However  IM (Instant Messaging) has been banned from use for White House staff.