Dubai: Gulf News readers welcomed the Telecom Regulatory Authority's (TRA) announcement that BlackBerry services will continue beyond the October 11 deadline.
Antoine Ronteix, a business development director living in Dubai, was relieved to read the announcement yesterday, saying he would have stopped using the phone altogether if the services had been discontinued.
He said: "I don't know what I would have done with a BlackBerry [without the service]. Actually I am now planning to send this device to my brother in France and buy the latest one. I use the messenger service a lot to stay in touch with people in New York, Paris, as well as my best friends in Sao Paulo and Japan, with whom I share pictures and messages."
Chandan Singh, who has been a BlackBerry user for over five years, prefers the phone over any other option in the market. He was confident that a solution would be reached by TRA and Research In Motion (RIM), considering the number of users in the country.
"If technology has developed so fast, regulations will definitely be set up for safe use. I use the phone for updates on social networking websites and the messenger to share jokes or information with friends and colleagues. Even my children use it for a bit of gaming," he said.
Happy customers
Rameez Aziz, a 26-year-old Sharjah resident, could barely hide his excitement when he heard the news.
"At first, I thought it was a joke, but then I read it on gulfnews.com and got so excited! I am on my phone 24/7. I cannot work without it. Since you cannot talk to your friends on the phone for long hours, you can easily stay in touch with them through the messenger service," he said.
Readers who use the phone specifically for work purposes too were happy to see the deal come through.
Divya Gianchandani, a partner in a Dubai-based firm, wrote in to gulfnews.com, saying: "Monitoring clients' inquiry and troubleshooting staff's [problems] becomes easy with BlackBerry. It is good news that they will continue the services." Ugresh Kumar, a 41-year-old business manager, works for a company with offices in Sharjah and India and the phone helps him stay connected while travelling.
"I am quite hooked to social networking websites, and am always connected and online. With the messenger service, communicating with my colleagues in India and my brother in the US is like a no-cost communication," he said.
Howard Nuttal, 53-year-old Dubai residentsaid: "[I knew that] a company like Blackberry would have to sort something out. It has become quite a phenomenon and was ahead of its time when it was launched. Now quite a few companies have caught up, but I haven't experimented with other phones because I find the phone functional and efficient."
