The Hindu Business Line : New Blackberry connections may take some more time

The Government may impose a
penalty on the existing operators for violating the licence norms which stipulate that they have to provide monitoring facility to the security agencies.

Thomas K Thomas

New Delhi, April 23 The Department of Telecom may ask existing mobile operators to stop giving new Blackberry connections until the security concerns are addressed fully.

DoT has also told the new operators, who want to launch Blackberry services, to hold on to their plans till Research In Motion complies with the Government’s monitoring requirement.

Senior DoT sources said that existing operators who have already launched Blackberry services may be allowed to provide service to existing users, keeping in mind the interest of consumers.

They, however, added that the Government may impose a penalty on these operators for violating the licence norms.

“The licence clearly states that operators will have to provide monitoring facility to security agencies. There is not a single telecom service in the country that is allowed without meeting this criterion.

Security concerns will have to be met by RIM before Blackberry service can be permitted. If operators are offering any service contrary to this, then they are violating the licence norms and necessary action may be taken,” said a Government source.

DoT has already refused permission to Tata Teleservices for launching Blackberry services.

Tatas have, meanwhile, told DoT that it is unfair to ban only the new players who want to offer the services.

Interim solution

One of the stakeholders indicated that DoT may be working towards an interim solution whereby operators may be asked to keep data of all the traffic routed through the Blackberry devices until RIM sets up a server in the country.

The controversy had broken out after security agencies expressed concern that they were unable to track communication on Blackberry due to the high encryption code.

As per Indian regulations companies have to submit a decryption key with Government agencies if the encryption code is higher than 40 bit.

Blackberry has much higher encryption which makes it difficult for security agencies to break into the network in case they want to trace any transmission. So far RIM, the promoter of Blackbery, has refused to give the decryption codes.

Talks on with RIM

DoT sources said that discussions are on with RIM to find a solution to the problem without compromising on both security issues and consumer interest. A final decision on the future course of action will be taken only after RIM comes back with its plan for addressing the security concerns over decryption

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