Cracking the whip further on Canada?s Research In Motion (RIM), the department of telecommunications (DoT) has asked all the operators providing BlackBerry services to halt them from September 1.

In a letter to the operators, DoT has said that unless it informs them otherwise, the services?BlackBerry Messenger Service and BlackBerry Enterprise Service?should be stopped.

Currently, operators like Bharti Airtel, Vodafone-Essar, Idea Cellular, Reliance Communications, Tata Teleservices, BSNL and MTNL provide BlackBerry services. The total subscriber base of BlackBerry in the country is a little less than 5 lakh.

The DoT letter follows the home ministry deadline to RIM on August 12 to provide real-time lawful interception of BMS and BES by August 31 or stop these services.

Meanwhile, sources said a team of RIM officials are meeting home ministry officials on Tuesday. Officials said that RIM had agreed to provide security agencies partial access to its messenger services by September 1 and would complete the project by the end of the year. It would discuss the solutions it can offer with regard to BES.

The move by RIM comes barely within five days after the government conveyed in no uncertain terms to RIM asking them to come up with a technical solution to the issue of interception of its services by August 31 or shut down its shop.

The tough stance by the home ministry comes after reports that RIM has agreed to give the authorities in Saudi Arabia codes for BMS after facing the threat of a ban. The United Arab Emirates, Lebanon and Algeria are also seeking access to the codes so that real time lawful interception can be done.

As earlier reported by FE, popular Internet messaging and voice sites like Google and Skype are not on government?s radar with regard to security concerns as traffic flow on them is through the local switching centres and servers located in the country. As such lawful interception on real-time basis is possible on them.

Even other smart phones from manufacturers like Nokia and Apple?s iPhone are not on the government?s radar because here too voice and data are carried on local servers and local switches of licensed operators and can be lawfully intercepted.