BlackBerry deal has price impact

Riyadh: A possible deal over the controversial BlackBerry messenger service between the Communications and Information Technology Commission (CITC), the Canadian company Research in Motion (RIM) and the three Saudi telecom providers has helped stabilise, or rather increase, the prices of BlackBerry phones, according to market sources.

Following fears of the ban of service in Saudi Arabia, their prices had fallen remarkably.

The CITC, the telecom regulator in the kingdom, gave RIM and the three providers — Saudi Telecom Company (STC), Mobily and Zain — 48 hours ending yesterday at midnight to comply with Saudi Arabia's security requirements, or face a total ban.

Network access

Sources close to the talks told Gulf News that a deal might be reached with RIM to provide Saudi authorities with access to its encrypted network.

Earlier press reports quoted a CITC source as saying that three new servers were being tested as a way out the current predicament.

The 750,000 BlackBerry users in the kingdom were anxiously waiting for solution to the problem.

They are not alone in this as other Arab and GCC countries were also waiting to see the outcome of the negotiations.

Talking to Gulf News, a number of GCC ambassadors to Riyadh said though their countries announced that they would not stop the BlackBerry service, they may change their stance in the near future depending on the results of the current negotiations being held by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates with RIM.

Oman said yesterday it has no plans to block BlackBerry services.

Sources close to the talks also said RIM was most likely to enable the CITC to monitor and follow up the immediate text messages on the BlackBerry.

"The messaging service is part of a bundle of services being provided by the BlackBerry, so separating messaging from the other services might take a long time to do," they warned.