UPDATED 09:03 EDT / SEPTEMBER 21 2015

NEWS

Skype service cuts out globally, but a promised fix is coming

Update:

Skype has said that it has discovered the cause of the outage, but the service is still unavailable for many users. There is no indication on when exactly the issue will be resolved, but Skype says that it is “in the process of reconnecting our users, and focused on restoring full service.”

Original Article: 

Popular video conferencing and chat service Skype suffered a major network outage this morning, and users across the globe have been unable to log in or use the application for several hours.

“We are working to fix an issue which is preventing some users from logging in and using Skype,” the service said on its official Twitter account. “We apologize for any inconvenience.”

Skype went into more detail about the specific issues affecting users on its blog:

If you’re signed in to Skype, you will not be able to change your status and your contacts will all show as offline even if they are online. As a result, you won’t be able to start Skype calls to them..

A small number of messages to group chats are not being delivered, but in most cases you can still instant message your contacts..

If you aren’t signed in to Skype, you may be experiencing difficulty when attempting to sign in. Any changes to your Skype account such as your Credit balance or your profile details might take a little while to be displayed..

While being unable to log in to Skype may be inconvenient for users looking to chat with friends or relatives, the outage presents a major problem for businesses who use the application for internal communications.

In addition to video conference calls and virtual meetings, Skype is also frequently used by businesses for communication between employees.

This is especially true of organizations with large numbers of remote employees who are unable to meet face-to-face and for whom phone conversations may be difficult due to international calling rates. Obviously, these employees will still be able to communicate through email or other chat services, but an outage of this scale certainly does not look good for Skype as a business solution.

Photo by 1000heads 

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