Johannesburg - Mobile operator, Vodacom Group [JSE:VOD])
said on Friday that it would "reimburse" BlackBerry customers
affected by the service disruption earlier in the week.
The crash of the BlackBerry email and BlackBerry messenger
services began on Monday affecting users in Europe, the Middle East, Africa,
India, Brazil, Chile and Argentina, and spreading to North America on Tuesday.
Research In Motion (RIM), the company behind BlackBerry smartphones said that the problem had been resolved on Thursday.
"As a token of goodwill, Vodacom will give all
BlackBerry customers affected by this week's service disruption 20 free Vodacom
to Vodacom minutes for use from Monday to Friday next week. In addition to this
we will also be giving affected customers 20 free SMSs for the inconvenience of
the past few days," Vodacom said in a statement.
"RIM's technical problems were out of our hands. Many
BlackBerry users have been denied the service for three successive days, which
is unusually long. It is only fitting that we do this as a gesture of
appreciation for their patience," said Portia Maurice, Vodacom's chief
officer: corporate affairs.
"We will not be able to do this each time a supplier has a problem, but we do believe this is an exception."
On Thursday SA's third mobile operator, Cell C said that it
would also compensate its BlackBerry users.
Cell C said it would give its customers R10 off the cost of
their BlackBerry Internet/Enterprise Service for the month of October as well
as providing them 10 free SMSs for the time they could not use Blackberry
Messenger.
The mobile operator stressed that while it had no role in
the service disruption, "the company wants to ensure customers are
compensated for the loss of service as a gesture of goodwill. Customers will
receive more information about the compensation via SMS next week."