Blackberry issue to be solved in a month: Raja

New Delhi, May 16 (UNI) Communications and Information Technology Minister A Raja today said the Canadian firm Research-in-Motion (RIM) has given categorical assurance to the Indian government that it will resolve the BlackBerry security issue within a month.

''RIM has promised the government that they will come out with a solution in a month,'' Mr Raja told reporters on the sidelines of an event.

The government has held a series of meetings with RIM and mobile operators after security officials had raised their concerns that the e-mails sent through BlackBerry devices cannot be traced or intercepted.

The government was considering whether to allow foreign companies to bid at auctions for licences for third-generation services (3G) in consultation, he added.

Telecom regulator TRAI had last month said the auctions should be restricted to existing telecom service licence holders.

The Minister said things were being worked out to ensure that lakhs of BlackBerry users were not affected.

According to the reports, Cain Technologies and SS8 networks will demonstrate their interception equipment to the Department of Telecom (DoT) and Intelligence Bureau (IB) today.

If the demonstrations are successful, the government will direct the RIM to install the interception solution on Indian mobile networks expeditiously.

There are about four lakh subscribers of the BlackBerry services in the country offered by Bharti Airtel, Vodafone, Reliance and BPL Communications.

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