Blackberry issue: DoT awaiting technical upgradation by telecom operators

NEW DELHI: The Department of Telecommunications on Thursday said it was yet to get the technical compliance report from various telecom operators testifying that they have technically upgraded their network to encrypt BlackBerry's enterprise mail services.

"Compliance report that the network has been technically upgraded has been provided by just a few operators. Many are yet to submit it," a senior DoT official told IANS.

Earlier this week, DOT had asked all the telecom companies to upgrade their network to allow lawful interception of the Blackberry messenger services and submit the compliance report by Sep 22.

"The operators are constantly upgrading their network to comply with the lawful interception by the government," said Rajan Mathews, director general of the Cellular Operators Association of India.

He, however, did not elaborate on which operators have already submitted their compliance reports.

According to him, some issues have been resolved and some will take a few more days.

"The decryption is the duty of the DOT... We just need to provide the access" he added.

The government had threatened to block some of the BlackBerry services if the Canadian company, Research in Motion (RIM), failed to come up with tools to monitor them by the end of August. However, it extended the deadline for another two months from Sep 1 after RIM provided solutions for security agencies to monitor the company's BlackBerry corporate email service.

According to the home ministry, any communication through the telecom networks should be accessible by the law enforcement agencies and all telecom service providers, including third parties, will have to comply with this.

As per the official figures, there are over 10 lakh Blackberry users in India.