Nimbuzz: A VOIP Service Blocked In Saudi Arabia

by | posted: April 4, 2013 4 comments

Nimbuzz, the cross-platform messaging and VOIP service announced last month that it has hit the 150 million user milestone. Nimbuzz is an instant messaging and Voice over IP service available for many platforms; Windows, Mac, iPhone and so on. For some strange reason nimbuzz.com has been blocked in Saudi Arabia. Last year FaceTime was also deactivated.

Starting way back in 2006, Nimbuzz, a startup originally from the Netherlands concentrated on smartphone apps in the emerging markets paying attention to feature phones which use Java apps. The strongest countries for Nimbuzz this year are India and Saudi Arabia. India has around 25 million users while users in Asia are around 78 million.

Last week the news was that communications applications like Skype, Viber and Whatsapp may be banned in Saudi Arabia. The Communications and Information Technology Commission (CITC) is threatening blockage of programs and applications that provide conversation and visual communication because they use encrypted connections.

To help getting it unblocked try filling a form at internet.gov.sa or  send a fax to +966(1)2639290.

At the time of this post we are yet to hear any official comment from Nimbuzz or Saudi Arabia ICT authorities.

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Kapil Bhatia

Kapil is the Founder of TFOUR.ME. He has been in the Financial Services Industry past 13 years. His work ranges across e-Channels, Digital Marketing, Online Acquisition, Payments, and developing Online and Mobile Strategies, with a sound Information Technology base. He has been part of the blogging industry since 2007 and an established columnist writing on online business and technology for various publications in the region. Follow him on Twitter –

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4 Responses to “Nimbuzz: A VOIP Service Blocked In Saudi Arabia”

  1. Reply
    ansar
    April 8, 2013 at 1:30 pm #

    It started working again today!

  2. Reply
    Aftab
    May 3, 2013 at 12:55 pm #

    I tried this today, May 03, 2013 and its not working. Saudi Arabia banned it under influence form Etisalat I think!

  3. Reply
    Irshad Mohammed
    May 9, 2013 at 11:18 pm #

    Its true the app has been blocked. No clue why?

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  1. Viber Blocked In Saudi Arabia | TFOUR.ME - June 7, 2013

    […] Nimbuzz an instant messaging and Voice over IP service available for many platforms; Windows, Mac, iPhone and so on was blocked in April 2013. Last year FaceTime was also deactivated. […]

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