BlackBerry users on hold for Etisalat’s explanation

For a company that makes its living out of people communicating, Etisalat has been surprisingly tight-lipped in the past few days. BlackBerry users experienced difficulties last weekend during a “routine upgrade process”.

It appears the upgrade, a software patch supposedly intended to maintain network quality, turned out to contain a bug that drained batteries, overheated handsets and left many users of the BlackBerry mobile e-mail system disconnected from their businesses. Some were literally stranded.

“The day mine crashed, I was in a deserted part of Dubai and really needed to call a cab,” said Reuven Proenca, a public relations professional. “I couldn’t call or message or e-mail, and the whole thing just reinforced the fact that we are all so dependent on our BlackBerries.”