Email users suffered a disruption to their service after North Rock Communications' mail platform failed and then shut down for a large part of Tuesday.

The telecommunications provider experienced the failure on its clustered redundant mail platform, with service being restored at 10.30 a.m.

In an effort to determine the root cause of the problem, North Rock's network operations team worked closely with overseas technical support to resolve the issue. During that time, the mail platform stopped functioning at 2 p.m. and was up and running again at 10 p.m.

North Rock said it took this interruption of service very seriously and a full review and evaluation of the infrastructure, response time to resolution, and escalation was being conducted.

North Rock's general manager Vicki Coelho said: "North Rock apologises for the inconvenience and we understand that email is a very critical application. All efforts will be put in place to ensure that email service is reliable and always available.

"We pride ourselves on aiming for the highest level of uptime on the Island and will work tirelessly to ensure this issue does not reemerge. Once again we extend our sincere apologies to all customers affected."

An irate reader wrote into The Royal Gazette on Wednesday to express their dismay at the loss of North Rock's email service during the day.

"Is it not appalling that North Rock, probably one of the the Island's largest email providers, has not been able to have its email service working for most of today? And in the middle of 'Tech Week'"

Anyone affected by the disruption or who wants more information can contact North Rock Communications at 540-2700.