UAE Blackberry Services Continues After Oct 11

The UAE’s official news agency WAM today reports that the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) has said that Blackberry services will continue to operate after the previously set October 11 deadline.

BlackBerry Service to Be Monitored in Saudi Arabia

BlackBerry Bible: Everything You Need to Know About Your RIM Smartphone

According to the WAM release, the TRA “has confirmed that Blackberry services are now compliant with the UAE’s telecommunications regulatory framework.”

It continues by saying that TRA states: “all Blackberry services in the UAE will continue to operate as normal and no suspension of service will occur on October 11, 2010.”

This should come as a relief to all Blackberry users in the UAE who have faced an uncertain future since the TRA issued a ban on August 1 when they confirmed that BlackBerry Messenger, BlackBerry E-mail and BlackBerry Web-browsing services would be suspended as of October 11, 2010.

The precursor to that statement was that on July 25 the TRA said: “currently, Blackberry operates beyond the jurisdiction of national legislation, since it is the only device operating in the U.A.E. that immediately exports its data off-shore and is managed by a foreign, commercial organization.”

Within days after the August 1 announcement both telecommunications operators in the UAE, du and Etisalat, issued alternative plans for their Blackberry customers, basically giving them options for moving on to different plans with different handsets in case the ban would take effect on October 11. These offers are now presumably not in effect anymore since Blackberry services will continue.