Etisalat upgrade ‘kills’ BlackBerrys in UAE

BlackBerry customers in the UAE are furious after a software upgrade issued by Etisalat yesterday significantly reduced the battery life of their devices.

“The problem came up when they sent a new batch to enhance the performance but instead they have killed all blackberry batteries by activating a process inside the phone which empties the battery in less than an hour if not charged,” complained a frustrated BlackBerry customer in the country who wished to remain anonymous.

“All our company employees who installed this batch file has been affected. They claim they are working on it, and the time frame to send a fix is said to be 7 days,” our source added.

Another Etisalat help centre agent gave a completely different response - advising affected customers to charge their device for three hours and then remove the battery without switching the device off. Once kept aside for five minutes, the battery should then be placed back into the device and left to power on automatically.

There’s no word yet on whether this is an effective solution and Etisalat has since apologised for any inconvenience caused.

"This routine upgrade process has now been stopped as a precautionary measure. Etisalat is investigating the problem and affected customers are being contacted by Etisalat to advise them about a solution to the current issue," a statement from the company read.

Related news: Etisalat's BlackBerry patch designed for surveillance

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READERS' COMMENTS

Etisalat Blackburry Upgrade
Posted by Hany El Khafief on Wednesday 22 July 2009 at 11:54 UAE time


Please read this article related to that issue http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/07/blackberry-spyware/

Spyware
Posted by Jeny Michaels, SHJ, UAE on Wednesday 22 July 2009 at 09:52 UAE time


I really hope that my Critical Corporate info is not being messed around with...

Step 4
Posted by Ameen, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates on Monday 20 July 2009 at 13:09 UAE time


step 4 on the below option should read as ' press the Blackberry menu button'...

black berry
Posted by mohammed, abu dhabi, uae on Sunday 19 July 2009 at 00:27 UAE time


there is no black berry menu i went through 1 and 2 and 3 and couldent find the black berry menu

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