Blackberry Announces its Exit from Pakistan
Blackberry Announces its Exit from Pakistan
After Pakistan Telecommunication Authority announced in July that Blackberry Enterprise Services (BES) were to be shut down in Pakistan from November 30th, 2015, to save its face, Blackberry has today said that its exiting from Pakistan from December 1st, 2015.
Blackberry, through a blogpost, said that it’s exiting from Pakistan after it denied the government backdoor access to its servers.
‘Pakistani government wanted the ability to monitor all BlackBerry Enterprise Service traffic in the country, including every BES e-mail and BES BBM message’ – Marty Beard, Chief Operating Officer at BlackBerry.
Blackberry, however, couldn’t explain why it didn’t exit the country earlier — when such requests were being made — and it only announced the exit after it was ordered to be shut down in the country.
As mentioned above, PTA had already asked Pakistani operators to stop offering BES services to its customers, starting November 30th, 2015. Directive from PTA had asked mobile phone companies to ensure that there is no BES connection active after November 30th, 2015.
However, Blackberry phones will keep working even after December 1st, 2015 though only voice and SMS services will be available.
For those who don’t know, Blackberry services are primarily of two types:
BIS
BIS or BlackBerry Internet Service gives your BlackBerry access to the Internet. BIS is like an ISP (usually your cellular provider) and every time your BlackBerry gets an email, or accesses a webpage it goes through BIS (your operator) to do so.
BES
BES or BlackBerry Enterprise Server gives your BlackBerry access to a corporate intranet. The intranet is the private internal network within a company that is called BES. It’s kind of like a mini-internet that is cut off from the rest of the world.
Many intranets allow you to communicate with the Internet as well, but with added layers of security.
malikmuddser