DoT Vs. Blackberry – Round 2 – FIGHT!

The DoT on Friday has reportedly given two weeks to Research in Mobile (RIM) – the company that has developed Blackberry – to install servers and requisite equipment in India in order to tap e-mails sent through the service.

This was the message conveyed to the RIM representative in the country at a high level meeting in the department of telecommunications (DoT), which was chaired by the deputy director general (access services).

Officials from the ministry of home and representatives of Airtel, Vodafone, Reliance and Blackberry were also present in the meeting. The deadline for setting up this facility will be decided in a meeting scheduled next week, when high level officials of RIM from Canada will be present.

And also

RIM is currently operating services in 13 countries around the world. The present problem with Blackberry came to limelight when Tata Teleservices was not granted permission to operate the services. The government said that it was not possible to lawfully intercept e-mails sent through Blackberry phones. It is not yet clear how other operators like Reliance, Airtel and Vodafone are operating the services.

It is not clear. Not clear at all. The DoT website does not list any of these three as having obtained a UMS license. Does the ISP license imply a UMS license? Clearly not – since a UMS license requires a licensee to obtain, in addition, an ISP license.

So what happens next?More meetings.

Another meeting with RIM officials has been scheduled next week to discuss the issue further. In today’s meeting only a local sales representative of the company was present. “These are high level technical issues and hence the DoT officials today asked RIM representative to bring senior technical officials from Canada preferably by 2nd or 3rd of April for the next meeting,” said the industry representative.

DoT issues 15 day ultimatum to Blackberry service providers

The Blackberry controversy drags on with the DoT issuing a fifteen day ultimatum to telecom companies to put in place a suitable wiretapping system. The Business Standard article linked to above suggests that before Tata, other operators may not have specifically applied for and obtained a license to specifically introduce Blackberry devices.

The Blackberry service corresponds to the description of a Unified Messaging System – the license for which bars bulk encryption without placing a specific limit of 40 bits or otherwise. (However, UMS providers are required to obtain an ISP license as well, and so the 40 bit restriction is inherited). The DoT website has a list of UMS licensees which does not include any of the Blackberry providers.

What is a UMS?
“UMS shall have the ability to record, send and process Voice, Fax and E-Mail messages of subscribers. The terms “Message” in the document shall collectively indicate Voice, Fax and E-mail unless otherwise indicate. The system shall consist of Voice Processing sub-system, Storage sub-system (for voice, fax and e-mail), and Network Interfaces and Maintenance sub-system.

The objective of UMS is to allow subscribers to send, retrieve and manage messages in a uniform way, regardless of whether the message is a voice mail, a fax mail or an e-mail. In addition it shall be possible to manage the messages from various terminal types including phones, web browsers, standard e-mail clients and WAP terminals.”

I think this controversy has more to do with the existence of bulk/block encryption itself at a network-wide level, rather than at the individual user leve. Bulk encryption is forbidden for use by the “Licensee” under both the ISP and the UMS licenses. Individuals are given some relaxation on this rule and permitted to use encryption not-exceeding 40 bits and they may apply for a relaxation of this rule. However, ISPs themselves are not permitted any leeway and no mechanism exists even to apply for a relaxation.

So what’s going to happen?