If you’ve attempted to log into or make a call from Skype (News - Alert) this morning, you’re not alone. Turns out, many users are reporting similar issues in accessing the online telephony service.

Skype issued a statement Thursday morning, saying “Some of you may have problems signing in to Skype and making calls. We're investigating and hope to have more details to share soon.” Along with the message, Skype offered alternative sign-on instructions for Windows and Mac users to regain access.

Tech experts have been busy this morning, joining in to offer additional details on the outage. While Engadget reported that its OS X machines were functioning properly this morning, its Windows computers continued to experience issues. “We had to upgrade one of our Windows desktops to ‘break’ Skype, which indicates it could be a fault contained in the latest version, but then again, it could have simply been just a case of terrible timing,” wrote Endgadget.

Meanwhile, the Next Web performed tests earlier today, only to discover that both Mac and Linux clients were having trouble accessing the Skype service. In addition, the Skype website itself was working slower than usual, with pages experiencing lagging load times or producing an error message.

Of course, Skype users have been quick to jump on Twitter to voice their frustrations and experiences with trying to access the service this morning. One user, @Bilal_bawaleez, wrote: "Although it's been less than a month since MicroSoft acquired #Skype, I can't be surprised that Skype is down today! #MS #fail #jordan."

While Skype has yet to offer an explanation, the Skype account tweeted in response to the outcry: "Thanks for your patience -- we've identified the problem and will be rolling out a fix soon.”

This unfortunate outage comes right on the tail of Microsoft’s (News - Alert) recent announcement that it will acquire the VoIP service for a whopping $8.5 billion, bringing many to question whether this downtime is a result of the buyout. This isn’t a first for Skype, as it experienced an extended outage earlier this year after its overworked supernodes went down.

Stay tuned to TMCnet as this story develops.

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