This just keeps getting worse. After blocking Twitter and Facebook, it looks like the Egyptian government or carriers may have blocked Blackberry internet service as well. According to chatter on Twitter, internet access via Blackberry phones has been suspended.
As we wrote in our previous reports, Egyptian protesters are filling the streets of Cairo to demonstrate against government corruption and policies. Similar to the recent protests in Tunisia, the Egyptian demonstrations were partly organized on social networks like Facebook and Twitter. And mobile internet access is a key channel through which protesters are connecting with each other.
It’s unclear of all BlackBerry services have been blocked. Some are reporting that users can still access Apps. Vodafone Tweeted early this week saying that Twitter had not been blocked but that it could be a network issue. But the conversation on Twitter, which is updating at a rapid pace, indicating that the downtime it could be more than an overloaded network.
We’ve reached out to RIM and will update if we receive confirmation of the blockage.