Continent-wide outage hits Skype

If you use Skype – and have been having problems today – you are not alone.

What appears to be a serious continent-wide outage has hit the popular video chat app today, leaving users unable to send or receive messages.

The problems began overnight, when software giant Microsoft - which owns the Skype brand - said on its official Skype blog it was, 'aware of an incident where users will either lose connectivity to the application and may be unable to send or receive messages'.

An update at 7am GMT (9am France time) added: "We're aware users are still experiencing problems - we're looking into this!"

Skype has so far released no more information. Users have taken their frustration to Microsoft’s forums, describing the issue and asking for help. Some claim that the app has been down for hours. This map from independent internet outage monitor DownDetector reveals where outage reports were greatest at about 1.30pm on Tuesday, June 20.

While the outage appears to be affecting only Europe directly, its consequences are being felt globally. Millions of people rely on the app to connect with friends, family and business partners.