Last week, approximately 450 social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube were blocked in the Middle Eastern country of Pakistan. Today, we’re learning that the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority [PTA] has also decided to ban all BlackBerry services such as data [BIS, BES], email, and BBM in the country “until further notice.” The PTA has apparently asked all wireless service providers in the country to no longer provide BlackBerry services of any kind for the time being. At the moment, however, it’s unknown whether the ban is temporary or permanent.
This goes to show just the kind of radical steps some countries are willing to take so their citizens can’t access banned sites. This, of course, affects those who rely on their BlackBerry smartphones for things other than social networking. We’ll update as soon as we find out more information.