Exactly one week till BlackBerry suspension in UAE takes effect

The suspension of BlackBerry services in the UAE is set to take effect on October 11 should the parties not be able to reach agreement on UAE authorities being given access to data being transferred from BlackBerry devices to servers situated off-shore.

On August 1, the UAE Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) confirmed that BlackBerry Messenger, BlackBerry e-mail and BlackBerry web-browsing services in the UAE would be suspended as of October 11 as, “a result of the failure of ongoing attempts, dating back to 2007, to bring BlackBerry services in the UAE in line with UAE telecommunications regulations.”

It is understood that negotiations have been taking place between Research In Motion (RIM) representative and the TRA, though at this time no agreement has been made.

RIM, the manufacturer of BlackBerry devices, faced similar threats of closure or suspension of its services in India and Saudi Arabia in the past few months; and in each case was able to prevent the suspension taking effect. It had been expected that the Canadian company would be able to negotiate a similar stay of execution in the UAE.