UPDATE: Cablevision Customers Frustrated With E-Mail Outages

3:20 p.m.: After more than 24 hours of angst, Cablevision customers should see their Optimum Online e-mail services restored.

Sarah Chaikin, a spokeswoman for Cablevision said Friday afternoon, "The email disruption has been resolved.  The issue was caused by a digital mail storage device malfunction.  We believe that this was an extremely rare, one-time problem after more than a decade of uninterrupted email service and that no customer email was lost. We apologize to our customers and thank them for their patience."

The Cablevision statement shied away from putting an estimate on the amount of customers affected, saying, "The interruption impacted a minority of customers throughout the Cablevision service area; it was not geographically confined, nor were all customers affected."

According to the cable company, no e-mails will be lost. 

UPDATE: Cablevision customers reporting e-mail outages from as far away as Long Island, are expressing their frustration over what has been described by one customer as a, "blackout of information."

Tom Siebert, a customer from Weehawken, NJ, said he felt Cablevision was keeping their customers in the dark about widespread e-mail outages, which began Thursday morning.

"The lack of e-mail is maddening of course," said Siebert. "But Cablevision's customer service has been horrible."

Jeff Berry, a Cablevision customer from Long Island, reported that he had been without e-mail service since Thursday as well.

Cablevision's Director of Media Relations Sarah Chaikin, issued a statement via e-mail on Friday morning addressing the outages. 

"Cablevision is experiencing technical issues that have resulted in email delays and email access issues for some customers," said the e-mail.  "We have located the problem and expect to resolve the matter as quickly as possible.  We apologize for any inconvenience to our customers, and we will update this announcement as more information becomes available."

It is still unclear exactly how widespread outages are.

ORIGINAL STORY: Cablevision customers from New Canaan to Greenwich have been reporting issues with their Optimum Online e-mail. Problems range from inability to send, receive or access messages.

George Wright, a New Canaan resident, said he had been without Optimum Online e-mail service since Thursday morning. John Collins, a Greenwich resident, echoed Wright's claims, saying he'd been unable to successfully send e-mails since Thursday.

Another New Canaan resident who asked he remain anonymous, said his wife had received some discouraging advice.

"After an hour-long wait to speak to someone, [Cablevision] told my wife she should try using one of the free e-mail services," the subscriber said, referring to services such as Gmail. He had been without Optimum Online e-mail since Thursday afternoon.

Some customers have even taken to Twitter to express their frustration.

"Still no Optonline.net mail. Really?!" vented one Fairfield County resident via Twitter. 

Calls placed to Optimum Online's customer service yielded recorded messages saying they were, "experiencing unusually high call volumes at this time," and to try again later.

At the time of press, calls placed to Sarah Chaikin, a spokesperson for Cablevision, had not been returned.