Skype App Down For Users Around The World

UPDATE: 12:10 p.m. EDT -- Skype has updated its official blog to say that it has "identified the network issue which prevented users from logging in and using Skype" adding that it was in the process of reconnecting users and restoring a full service. It clarified that issue did not affect Skype for Business users.

Original Story

LONDON -- Communication app Skype is down for users around the world with users in Europe, Japan, Australia and the U.S. reporting connectivity problems.

According to the website DownDetector, problems were first reported at 4:23 a.m. EDT on Sept. 21 and on social media multiple users are reporting that the service is unavailable. On its own Heartbeat service, which updates the status of Skype connectivity, the company said: "Some of you may experience problems with Skype presence and may not see online. We have detected an issue with the status settings of Skype. Affected users will not be able to change their status, their contacts will all show as offline and they will be unable to start Skype calls to them."

Some users trying to log into the video calling service are currently greeted with the following message: "We're a bit overloaded right now... Please try again later, or download Skype to use it anytime." The issue relates to the status of users, with those affected having their status locked to offline, stopping them making calls even though they we connected. In addition all of a users' contacts would also be listed as offline preventing a call being made.

The company said that while voice and video calls are unavailable, users can still use the instant messaging part of the service and the outage doesn't affect Skype for Web which is still in beta. "We're working on a fix for this issue and hope to have an update for you soon. Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience caused while we get this resolved," the company said. Skype Support's offiical Twitter account also confirmed the problems the service was facing.

Skype, which was purchased by Microsoft Corp. for $.85 billion in 2011, has had two major global outages to date. The first was back in 2007 lasting for two days, while the second occurred in December, 2010 lasting for over 24 hours and affecting people around the world.

According to figures released last year, Skype now accounts for up to 40% of the entire international phone call market showing just how significant an outage like this is for the company.