Blackberry Back on Track
FINALLY, some good progress made by the U.A.E in reference to the banning of the blackberry service in the country. Im sure all of yall have heard no more stressing on whether the service is going to be there or not. ITS LIFTED (thank GOD). Messages were sent on the 7th of October over the Blackberry Internet Server that progress has been made and the next day everyone received an sms confirming it.
Although UAE officials havent publicly announced what they flaws were in the first place and how did they rectify it. UAE has also stated that the devices are now considered to be ok following the change put in place by the RIM. This just comes 3 days before the ban was set to begin.
Reports say that the reason the ban was dropped was because of the progress made in the security system, no actual details were given nor will be given in the future due to security reasons. Some say UAE was given a back door access to monitor devices in the country.
Due to RIM's regular com pliancy with the UAE government on resolving the issue with the ban has provided them an applaud with the people and increase in their stock more importantly.
RIM has also been involved in disputes as previously written in my blog before with government like KSA, India, Lebanon, Indonesia over its Blackberry services because of the way the messages were handled. For India the ban has been extended after RIM allowed limited access to the data. Not many know about this but 3 years back when people dint even know much about the Blackberry device or knew that it even existed the French government banned officials from using because of fears that the data could be intercepted. The President of the USA, Barack Obama still uses his blackberry but ofcourse with extra security measure in the device. For KSA it has been told that RIM had agreed to share the unique pin number and code for each Blackberry registered there, allowing authorities to read and encrypt text sent via Blackberry messenger.
Many in the UAE and myself were pretty optimistic about the lifting of the ban on the service. I personally got my phone a year back but dint purchase the phone cause of the internet service or email advantages or BBM at that point, i bought mine for the sole purpose of the qualities attached to the phone and its attributes and its odd shape. For me it wasn't all about the serviced attached to the phone but the functions of the phone were more important although i have registered for the social network package with Eiisalat it does come in handy at time no argument in that. Im quite please on the outcome on this whole issue and im sure many out there are too and are regretting selling their devices for a very low rate, few had shifted to other smart phones but the imminent deadline caused some jitters nonetheless.
It would have definitely been difficult for the UAE to impose such a restriction because of the impact on local business and international business attached to the usage of the device in their daily lives.
Im just GLAD its all over now.
