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Next, verify there really is a problem. Send yourself a test email, text message someone, try to load a webpage, and try to send a BlackBerry Messenger message. This will give you an idea of what is going on.

In the outage on April 17th and 18th text messaging and phone calls worked fine, but there was no e-mail and the BlackBerry browser couldn’t connect. That’s because the outage was on RIMs side and they do not handle the phone calls or texts, as those are taken care of by your Service Provider, like AT&T or T-Mobile.

If you have a group of BlackBerry buddies check with them to see if they are having problems too. For example, this morning my e-mail and browser stopped working, so I sent a text to a friend, who said his was working fine.

A battery pull later I was back on track. Sometimes the problem is just your BlackBerry and not the network. Usually you can tell pretty fast by talking to others if it is your service provider or RIM. Once it is clear what the problem is and who is causing it feel free to report it and share it with others.

Now comes the worst part: What to do while waiting for it to work again.

In the April 17th and 18th outage you could still use some third party applications. It was reported Opera Mini worked, along with mirc chat via the BlackBerry. Of course, any games on your BlackBerry are going to work just fine to. It is a great time to work on the BrickBreaker high score you want or work out the brain with a little Sudoku.

When you need a break from games you can load a new OS on your BlackBerry, if there is one available. And if there is not a new OS, it would be a perfect time to back up your data just in case you ever need it.

Also since I find that my internet e-mail accounts sometimes get very unorganized now that I read all e-mails on the BlackBerry, the outage was a great time to clean up my accounts.

Most importantly, remember service will come back. There are people scrambling to try and locate and fix the problem. Networks go down, and outages happen, no matter how hard a company tries to avoid them. It is just a part of the technology age.

No need to worry about missing an important e-mail if no e-mails are coming through, right? With an outage, millions of other people are the same position as you. They should understand your predicament.