It took two long years for India to (allegedly) tap BlackBerry traffic, but Saudi Arabia may not have to wait nearly as long; the Wall Street Journal reports that RIM has all but agreed to set up a local server in the country. While we’ve no details yet on what the deal entails, an unnamed Saudi telecom official said negotiations are already in the final stages. Sorry, RIM, but it looks like Saudi Arabia called your bluff. We imagine the company will deny any potential for government snooping in short order… and both Indonesia and the United Arab Emirates will start planning their own attempts to wrest away control. We’ll let you know where this house of cards falls.
So it wasn’t just the “Blackberry Messenger” that will be banned in Saudi Arabia. According to this the CITC has expressed concerns about the BIS for a year and asked the local carriers (STC, Mobily and Zain) to “look into” the concerns and provide an alternative for 3 months! The three months end next Friday August 6th.
Someone pulled the switch and f***ed it up for everyone.
No, not Conan.
There are almost 1 million blackberry user in Saudi Arabia and they only got one official statement about the ban less than 3 days. So 3 day notice? This is unacceptable! The CITC should have issued a longer warning period like the UAE TRA who announced the ban 2 months in advance!
The carriers, STC, Mobily and Zain did not warn their customers in the last 3 months as well. Both are at fault, CITC and the carriers.
And what will the customers do now? a 3 day notice is not acceptable especially for what is considered a business device. UAE Etisalat will offer free phones to Blackberry customers including iPhones!
Lastly, STC PR denied the ban 2 days ago which is obviously a lie. I never believed STC’s stupid lies anyway.
Sorry I am rambling but this idiocy is frustrating.
For over an hour I have been staring at my Linksys DSL modem status. The DSL connection is “Up”, Downstream is 8190 Kbps, Upstream is 486 Kbps and QoS is UBR which I assume is UBER which is supposed to be good (since I’m offline I can’t even go and check). Everything seems to be okay yet somehow the gateway interface is “DOWN” and has been down for almost 2 hours.
The fact that DSL connection up means that the signal should be good, yet somehow I cannot “dial in” the beloved STC Afaq DSL servers. That’s the only assumption I have: STC’s servers simply can’t handle the load and they should buy some servers already!
Why did I reboot the DSL modem in the first place? Because the Upstream was only 100Kbps and it made accessing the web slower. That’s it: I won’t reboot my modem even if the Upstream was 1Kbps. It’s not worth being offline for that.
Now we have Mobily: the iPhones in some parts of Riyadh are having problems connecting to Mobily’s cell towers. iPhones simply lose the cell network and stuck on “Searching”. So now I can’t even use the iPhone to connect to the Internet, leaving me offline for this night.
Update on Mobily: disabling 3G fixed it. Thanks Tom Merritt!
I will probably post this by the morning and hopefully Internet connection should be back.
Update: Last time I ramble uncaffeinated! fixed facts! Sorry Mobily.
Both the Saudi Telecommunications Company (STC) and Mobily has announced yesterday that they are the first to offer HSPA+ (Evolved HSPA with download speeds up to 56Mbit/s!!!). They announced the same thing in at least 2 different Saudi newspapers: AlRiyadh and Al-Eqtisadiah simultaneously!
Here are STC’s “news” articles: on AlRiyadh newspaper and Al-Eqtisadiah newspaper (Arabic links). The two articles are identical, in fact they are most likely a press release by STC. STC claims to be the first in the country, however…
Mobily had the same thing: on AlRiyadh newspaper and Al-Eqtisadiah newspaper. In addition, the news was also announced in Saudi Gazette English newspaper. The first part was identical to the Arabic press releases however it did include some info about the new Mobily Connect modem promotion. Mobily claimed to be the first in the region, makes no sense because…
STC was wrong!Both were wrong!
At least one telecommunications company had HSPA+ with 21Mbit/s available in the region. Zain Kuwait had HSPA+ since September 2009 (Kuwait News Agency link) and is called e-GO. Isn’t Kuwait party of the “region”? So why is Mobily claiming to be the first in the region when Zain Kuwait clearly had it first and who is bringing it first in Saudi Arabia? STC or Mobily? Both claim to be the first.Zain Kuwait actually released an HSPA+ device (Kuwait News Agency link). I found nothing about Zain Kuwait updating their network.
The Big Question
Two major Arabic speaking newspapers (AlRiyadh and Al-Eqtisadiah) published conflicting articles, each claiming to be the first. Why didn’t the newspapers verify the information first? How can the readers take them seriously?
Mobily’s iPhone 3GS will be sold in Saudi Arabia this Saturday November 7th 2009. The prices are out for the iPhone 3GS 32GB and 16GB models as well as iPhone 3G 8GB and can be found on SaudiMac.
Only people who reserved an iPhone 3GS on mobily’s site will be able to buy it on the first day.
Update: looking at Netcraft, the server keeps changing from WebSEAL/5.1.0.0 Build 031024 to IBM_HTTP_Server/2.0.47.1-PQ94389 Apache/2.0.47 Win32. So the Apache server must be temporary.
Mobily (second mobile carrier in Saudi Arabia and the country’s exclusive iPhone 3G/3GS provider) is using Apache/2.0.47 (Win32), an extremely outdated version of Apache! Running it on Windows is also a horrible idea!
That explains why is their site functions so slowly. Thanks (haythamkhouja, waiel and yraffah) for pointing this out!
Update 6: This could be the final update. iPhone 3GS in Saudi Arabia on November 7th. If you did not receive an SMS from mobily then you might have a problem with your pre-order!
Update 4: Mobily did not send an SMS regarding the iPhone 3GS until now, so there is a possibility that the iPhone 3GS won’t be released October 27th as expected. Did Etisalat UAE decide to abandon their Saudi partner?
I see a pattern here. STC‘s newest ad makes fun of Mobily‘s Broadband @ home slow Internet speed.
The ad is a parody of a Mobily ad (which I will post once I find it) where a guy wears goggles to face the “speed” of the Internet connection by Mobily.
Quick translation:
(preparing to download a file)
Guy: “Are you ready?”
Announcer: “Are you surprised by the truth?”
(on screen: 4 hours to finish download)
Announcer: “Your only solution is AFAQ DSL SHAMIL, fastest Internet in Saudi Arabia”.
Mobily attacks their biggest competitor, STC with their latest ad starring Saudi actor Youssef Al Jarrah “يوسف الجراح”. Here’s the ad (Arabic video) and and English translation:
Here’s the translation:
left: (talking to his new born child).
right: congratulations, what will you name him?
left: Nawaf (Neefo as a nickname) Oh yeah you reminded me (dials the phone) I will order Internet access for him.
right: Internet for the newborn?
left: It will be turn once he enters college.
ad guy: with Broadband @ home get the Internet immediately from Mobily.
left: God help them, “all our operators are currently busy”.
The ad takes a shot at STC’s slow support system and to be honest I had my shares of waiting for over 30 minutes for an STC operator. Mobily: Where’s my iPhone 3GS?
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