Skype, Microsoft’s phone, chat and video conferencing service, experienced an outage this morning across parts of North and South America, the U.K., Europe and eastern Asia. But the platforms management team reported the Skype outage resolved within hours.
An official announcement on Skype’s website confirmed reports.
“We are aware of a problem, impacting multiple Skype services (sign-in, PSTN calls, SMS sending and etc.) Our engineers are already working on the solution and we hope the issue is resolved soon,” the announcement said.
Users Sounded Alarm But Skype Outage Resolved within Hours
No reason was given for the outage and service has since been restored.
It didn’t take long following the outage for Skype users to sound the alarm via Twitter.
#skype @SkypeSupport @SkypeBusiness @Skype @skype guys ! Wake up !! Your service is DOWN ! Your customers are not able to reach you !! #news
— Big Parser (@BigParser) December 15, 2016
i hate relying on 3rd party services for work stuff.. yet another @Skype outage…
— Daniel Chote (@dchote) December 15, 2016
Is there a @Skype outage today? Can't seem to connect. Any help would be great – thanks!
— Jake Wengroff (@JakeWengroff) December 15, 2016
Big ol' Skype outage this morning, huh?
— Michaelatke Futter (@Futterish) December 15, 2016
DownDetector, a site that tracks technology fails, showed the problem lasted about four hours.
The most reported problems included log-ins, voice calls and receiving messages.
To everyone’s relief, a Microsoft representative announced that the problem had been resolved, after a 3-hour delay.
[UPDATE] Skype Is Back after Three Hour Outage https://t.co/nThAcHVx6H pic.twitter.com/1yLAYIOtxV
— Aoando Saraki (@Aoandosaraki) December 15, 2016
This is not the first time Skype has been down. It occurs periodically, as recently as October and November, according to the Skype support Twitter account.
Consumers rely on Skype to communicate remotely via phone, chat and video. Companies also use it, for phone and video conferencing.
Microsoft even offers a version specifically designed for business use that incorporates features beyond those offered in the consumer version, including administrative roles, expanded conferencing capabilities and integration with Microsoft Office 365.
Image: downdetector.com
3 hours of downtime is a HUGE deal for a company like Skype. Somebody is getting fired.
Aira Bongco
That is sad. Skype is already a stable in online communications and it can vastly affect some businesses.
Prasanta Shee
3 hours Skype downtime is a huge loss for businesses using skype. Alternatively, one may continue his business meetings using tools like webex, R-HUB web conferencing servers, gotomeeting etc. They work well.