Battle Co. -- trouble in the island kingdom

Apparently Battle Co. decided that they weren't making enough money so they created new Internet broadband subscription packages with thresholds (ridiculous ones at that).

Mahmood seems to lead the campaign against this with a very interesting site called Boycott Batelco.

First of all, DMO must make it clear that we find Battle Co's behavior greedy and uncalled for. It is this kind of abuse that strifles economic growth in the region. Having said that, we would like to look at the situation from a PR perspective.

Batelco found itself in the middle of a storm that it did not expect. It assumed their customers are ignorant. They are not. The TRA was also involved in this. The situation was getting very messy.

Batelco's policy became that of engagement. They engaged the complaining customers, in public and did not proceed to block the site. Batelco's CEO personally replied. That's a huge step that is very unlike any other corporation in the world, let alone here in the GCC.

DMO salutes Batelco's initiative in engaging their customers in a civil manner while allowing them to voice their concerns in public without attempting to block their means of communication. This is something that we highly doubt Etisalat here would do.

Interestingly, the campaign's site mentions Etisalat several times in good light. What the customers in Bahrain don't seem to know is that Etisalat still places thresholds on business ADSL susbcriptions with no options of 'unlimited threshold'. In effect, Etisalat too, are guilty of strifling growth of businesses in the UAE.

The problem is that a grassroots movement like the Boycott Batelco campaign is led and followed by citizens of the country whereas in the UAE, such a campaign would most likely be an expat affair, getting much less attention from the government and authorities. After all, expats are temporary.