BlackBerry's messaging services were restored in Saudi Arabia Friday after a few hours break, despite a ban expected to take effect the same day, users said. Many users reported that the services were interrupted at around 0930 GMT, but four hours later they went back online. “I found at 4:30 in the morning that my BlackBerry Messenger was not working, but it was restored by 3 P.M.,” an STC customer told Saudi Gazette. Some STC customers received a text message notifying them of the Communications and Information Technology Commission (CITC) decision to suspend messaging service from Friday (Aug. 6). However, customers of the other two operators – Mobily and Zain – did not experience any interruption in service. A Mobily Customer Service representative told Saudi Gazette that the BBM service is continuing since they have not received an official circular from the CITC to suspend it. But expectations of the ban have pushed many users to sell their devices. At Riyadh's main mobile phone market, dozens of young men on the street were trying to sell their smartphones, some in their original packaging, and some asking for less than half the normal price. “Nobody buys it now,” mourned Nour Al-Zaman, a store owner in the market. Al-Zaman said his shop had cut prices for a new BlackBerry from around $300 to around $100. Another shop owner in the market, Isam Ali Marsh, said he used to sell seven or eight BlackBerrys per day. “Now I don't sell even one BlackBerry,” he said. People have also come in trying to exchange their BlackBerrys for ordinary cell phones, said shop owner Abdul-Ghani Al-Owaydi. “Our lives have been wrecked. We are sitting in our shops doing nothing. We have done nothing to get into such a difficult financial situation,” Al-Owaydi said. The Saudi telecommunications authority announced Tuesday that it ordered the country's three providers to block key BlackBerry services or face a $1.3-million fine as of August 6. But a time was not specified. The regulator said “the way BlackBerry services are provided currently does not meet the regulatory criteria of the commission and the licensing conditions,” in a statement carried by the Saudi Press Agency (SPA).
