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Indian BlackBerry Ban

BlackBerry Ban Called Off In India

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India’s Ministry of Home Affairs, in a press release last week, announced that discussions with Research in Motion have led to an interim agreement under which BlackBerry Messenger services could continue.

Following continuing discussion of M/S RIM with Government of India on the issue of providing access for lawful interception, RIM has set up an interim arrangement for lawful interception of BBM services. RIM has assured the Government of India that they will provide the final solution for the lawful interception of BBM services by 31.01.2011. Accordingly, the BBM services will continue to be available.

[Via CNet]

RIM Tells Indian Government That It Won’t Be Giving Them Security Hack

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Have you been following the whole Indian BlackBerry Ban debacle that has been going on for the passed few months. If you haven’t we will spare you all the details on this post and just tell you that it is over.

It looks like Research in Motion told the Indian government that the BlackBerry was designed so that third parties, including RIM, would not be able to read encrypted information sent on the devices.

The only question that we have is why did RIM dance around this so long?

[Source]

The Indian BlackBerry Debate Is A Complete Mess

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Here is encouraging news to BlackBerry users in India. Not only aren’t the Indian government and Research in Motion close on a resolution addressing concerns about “BlackBerry Security”, Canadian High Commissioner David M. Malone and RIM have sent a letter to the Indian communication and IT minister asking who they can deal with that actually has the power to make a decision.

We and RIM (Canada-based BlackBerry vendor Research-in-Motion) need to understand who in the government of India is empowered to resolve this issue. This is necessary in order to ensure the right representative from RIM at the table.

The discussion managed by DoT to date has inspired little confidence that those involved on the Indian side are actually empowered to settle the matter as Indian government’s demands of RIM keep expanding while media leaks proliferate…

Potential terrorists are now aware, because of these leaks, of technical issues unknown to most of us previously.

The fact that the requirements are a moving target and, thus far, the ones giving them don’t seem to be able to say yes or no effectively seems to make clear that this issue is going to take a while to get resolved.

[Source]

Indian Government Still Telling Tata Teleservices No

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The Indian Department of Telecommunications (DoT)is still telling Tata Teleservices no when it comes to rolling out BlackBerry service in India.

Just the other day Tata said that despite not getting a blessing from the DoT to role out BlackBerry services in India that they were going to do so anyway because the companies currently offering the BlackBerry service never asked for the governments permission. The DoT said however, “Non-compliance of instructions by any other operator in breach of terms and conditions of the licence cannot be a valid ground for according permission to offer Blackberry services.”

To make a long story short, the DoT said that just because they did it an are getting away with it doesn’t mean that you are going to.

We are sure that this is that last that we will here of this or the possible Indian BlackBerry ban.

[Source]

Tata Teleservices Decides To Offer BlackBerry In India… Anyway

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If you’ve been following the continuing saga of the potential BlackBerry ban in India, you may remember that Tata Teleservices application to offer BlackBerry on their network was the fire spark that set all of the “BlackBerry is too secure” controversy off.

Well, despite the Indian DoT’s initial rejection of Tata’s application to carry the BlackBerry and the threat of a potential BlackBerry ban, Tata Teleservices has decided to launch the BlackBerry anyway.

TSL has told the government that the delay was costing it heavily in terms of “loss of business opportunity and recurring revenues.”

“We do appreciate that there are security concerns and concerns on the subject of lawful interception. We, however, feel that having followed procedures to seek approvals we can’t be suffering vis-à-vis such operators who never sought such clearances,” the company explained in a letter to the DoT.

To make a long story short Tata says regardless of if they have the governments blessing or not, they will be rolling out BlackBerry service on their network.

I wonder what the DoT will have to say about that?

[Source]

RIM To Provide Indian Telecoms Solution To Monitor BlackBerrys By Next Week

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In case you haven’t heard, the Indian government said that they would put a ban on BlackBerrys (BlackBerry data that is) if Research in Motion didn’t provide Indian based telecoms that support the BlackBerry a means to monitor traffic being sent and received on RIM’s secure BlackBerry network. BlackBerry data is encrypted which prevents India’s Union Home Ministry from monitoring messages sent on the devices.

Research in Motion is, however, expected to provide a solution early next week, that will ease the concerns and meet the 15 day deadline set by the Indian government back in March.

“BlackBerry is cooperating and they are saying they will come up with a solution to the issue any day now”, said T.V. Ramachandran, director general of the Cellular Operators’ Association of India (COAI). “I am hopeful of seeing a solution even before 9th, I mean some time early next week.”

India currently only has about 400,000 BlackBerry users, however, the country is one of the fastest growing emerging markets and the BlackBerry is poised to do very well there so long as RIM can address the governments security concerns.

[Source]

Indian Telecoms Secretary “Very Keen” That BlackBerry Services Should Continue

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Remember the other day when we said that India banned the BlackBerry? Well, Telecoms Secretary, Siddhartha Behura, told reporters at an industry conference that “There is no question of banning at this point.”

The department of telecoms will meet with the representatives of the four wireless providers that currently offer BlackBerry service in India.

“We are not interested that we say BlackBerry will not be used in this country”, said Behura. ”
We want operators to talk to BlackBerry people and put pressure on them to provide the necessary and satisfactory answers to security agencies. That is why we are talking to them.”

I guess it kind of sucks if you are Indian telecom Tata Teleservices. They were the company that had their application to offer BlackBerry service rejected, however, they weren’t invited to the meeting.

[Source]