By Technology Times Staff Reporter
Lagos. February 25, 2013: Blackberry Smartphone users may find themselves paying more to use the internet in some cases without being aware of these extra charges apart from the regular subscription to its online services, Etisalat Nigeria has explained.
This was contained in a new service advisory issued by the mobile phone company to educate Blackberry users on how they may incur extra charges for using their smartphones on the Etisalat network.
Etisalat says that it has been mandated by the industry regulator to notify users of all “events”, including airtime and voice, that charges users.
Because of this, Blackberry users have been receiving alerts on internet browsing charges while their subscription to the smartphones internet service is active.
The company says that Blackberry Smartphones browse through access points (APNs) allowing them to access the internet and use different apps on the device.
Etisalat Nigeria says that its Blackberry subscribers have two of these APNs on their lines: BlackBerry.net APN and the Etisalat APN.
“All BlackBerry devices route traffic to RIM (the manufacturers of BlackBerry Smartphones) for BBM, emails, browsing and chat with IM application (native BlackBerry applications like Windows Live Messenger, GTalk and Yahoo Messenger). All these services are configured to use the BlackBerry.net APN and are therefore not charged”, Etisalat Nigeria says.
However, the company adds that, “third-party applications downloaded from various app stores and websites (but not created by RIM) however, route traffic directly to the internet. As these apps are not created by RIM or Etisalat Nigeria, the apps are able to pick any of the available APNs thus resulting in charges once they work through the Etisalat APN.”
The mobile phone company adds that its Blackberry service is offered in line with global best practices and as prescribed by RIM, makers of the device and its decision to “send alerts of all your charges demonstrates our transparency and we urge all our customers to carefully consider the apps they download.”
When subscribers on the Etisalat network consider these apps desirable but do not want the alerts, they can turn off the alerts by dialling *262*2#, the company says.
Home