Tata Teleservices Ltd (TTSL) on Thursday finally launched its BlackBerry services six months after it ran into trouble with the ministry of home affairs (MHA), which refused to give it clearance citing security issues.
Speaking on the launch of the services, Anil Sardana, MD, TTSL, said, ?We take immense pride in launching the BlackBerry services. BlackBerry has become an office on the move for corporate executives and business professionals.? TTSL, however, didn?t disclose the price of the Blackberry device. TTSL launched the BlackBerry 8830 World Edition.
Simultaneously, Bharti Airtel, Reliance Communications and Vodafone-Essar also launched a new model, Blackberry Bold priced at Rs 34,990.
Tatas were denied permission as the MHA had maintained that communication between BlackBerry devices couldn?t be legally intercepted, as the server was located outside the country. This had kick-started a round of intense discussions among the department of telecommunication (DoT), the Canadian firm Research in Motion (RIM) the technology provider of BlackBerry service and the Indian service providers (such as Bharti Airtel, Reliance Communications and Vodafone-Essar ) who offer the BlackBerry services in the country to find ways for legal interception of the services. RIM had appeared reluctant in sharing its technological capabilities and wanted more time to find an alternative route rather than setting up servers in the country earlier suggested by the DoT.
The Canadian firm finally expressed its inability to either provide a solution to Indian security agencies to decode content or shift servers to the sub-continent nation to enable them monitor e-mails and other data.
The matter was finally resolved when the DoT secretary, Siddharth Behura said that the government does not accord permission or deny the same to operators for launching the services.
