Nija and Blackberry

The blackberry device and solution by RIM (Research In Motion) has been in existence for many years. But was seen primarily as a tool for business men/women who needed to get their emails, sales reports etc while on the go.

The first and second generation devices were bulky, heavy and lacked any application whatsoever geared towards entertainment. Their target market was well defined, and I guess business men of those days wouldn’t want to be seen playing “angry birds” or “FIFA 98” while waiting in the lobby to meet with a CEO.

In recent times, RIM has upgraded their devices and operating systems in order to be competitive in the market. The devices became more pleasant to behold, they become more user friendly, they became more “trendy” and also the blackberry application world was created to provide business, entertainment, multimedia applications.

Globacom was the first Operator to introduce the blackberry service in Nigeria, but they sort of lacked fore sight and their solution was geared primarily towards the corporates. MTN then joined and they were the ones who introduced prepaid blackberry service. And that took of like a fire in the forest. And then soon after the likes of Zain and Etisalat also hopped on.

Its been a price war ever since with each provider trying to outdo each other by price reductions and other innovations that are not even yet made available outside of Nigeria. BIS service that was at a high monthly cost of N5000 has been reduced by almost 50% to N2, 800 by Glo while Airtel, MTN and Etisalat are now at N3000. They have all also introduced daily and weekly rates for blackberry services.

Looking around, you will find out that more than 70% of blackberry users are youths, students etc and no longer the business men that were the primary target. The blackberry device is no longer seen as an “email only” device but has joined the league of, funky multimedia smart-phones like the Apple I phone and Android powered devices.

In fact, recently I ran into two young ladies who both were laughing into their blackberry devices, I told them I was performing a mini random survey and wanted to know how many email accounts they had set up on their devices (10 email addresses supported). Answer……………none.

They use their blackberry mainly for Blackberry messenger, yahoo messenger, facebook and twitter.

Etisalat is the only network that has reacted to this discovery. They introduced new blackberry plans which was cheaper aimed at those who want only specific services.

Blackberry Social Plan

http://www.etisalat.com.ng/blackberry/bb_socialplan.php

Blackberry Email and IM plan

http://www.etisalat.com.ng/blackberry/bb_email_im_plan.php

To activate BB service on the various networks see table below

Network	Price	Plan	Activation	Data Allowance
MTN	NA	Daily		Unlimited
	1000	Weekly	send SMS BBWEEK to 21600	Unlimited
	3000	Monthly	Send SMS BBMONTH to 21600	Unlimited
AIRTEL	200	Daily	Send BISDAY to 440	Unlimited
	1000	Weekly	Send BISWEEK to 440	Unlimited
	3000	Monthly	Send BISMONTH to 440	Unlimited
GLOBACOM	250	Daily	Send BIS DAY to 777	Unlimited
	900	Weekly	Send BISWEEK to 777	Unlimited
	2800	Monthly	Send BISMONTH to 777	Unlimited
ETISALAT	400	Daily	Dial *399*5#	Unlimited
	1000	Weekly	Dial *399*6#	Unlimited
	3000	Monthly	Dial *399*1#	Unlimited

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