RIM final Messenger solution by Jan end?

Devidutta Tripathy and Krittivas Mukherjee

NEW DELHI, INDIA:India said on Friday Research In Motion has set up an interim arrangement for lawful interception of BlackBerry Messenger services and has assured to provide a final solution by end-January, and a government source said talks are still on over access to corporate emails.

India, among several countries to express concerns BlackBerry services could be used to stir political or social instability, had threatened RIM with a ban if denied access to its highly-secure Messenger and corporate email communications.

RIM won a 60-day reprieve at the end of August after offering India a solution to monitor some BlackBerry data, a claim yet to be confirmed by the Canadian firm.

In a statement on Friday, India's interior ministry said RIM had assured the government that they would provide the final solution for lawful interception of BlackBerry Messenger services by Jan. 31.

"Accordingly, the BBM (BlackBerry Messenger) services will continue to be available," the statement said.

The statement did not mention anything about access to corporate email services, but an interior ministry source said RIM had made two presentations.

"I will not say there is no movement," the source said.

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India, the world's fastest-growing mobile market, wants access to encrypted email traffic sent via RIM's enterprise servers. The BlackBerry maker says its system is designed so that only the sponsoring business or organisation has the technical capability to grant such access.

"RIM can confirm that its discussions with the Indian government continue to be constructive and RIM remains optimistic about reaching a positive and final resolution," the Canadian firm said in a separate statement on Friday.

An India-based spokesman for RIM declined to comment beyond the statement.

RIM has been in dispute this year with a number of countries in the Gulf and elsewhere over its encrypted email and messaging services, which governments want monitored.

The United Arab Emirates has dropped a threat to suspend BlackBerry services after resolving a dispute with Research in Motion, the state news agency said earlier this month.