BlackBerry adds 50,000 users despite controversy

Though the controversy over the security of BlackBerry services is yet to be resolved, the four operators that offer these services "" Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Essar, BPL Mobile and Reliance Communications "" have added over 50,000 customers in the four months since the problems began.

Before this, the push-mail service, which was introduced in India in October 2004, had 400,000 subscribers according to industry estimates.

There are over 14 million BlackBerry subscribers worldwide. Research In Motion (RIM), the Canadian communications major and owner of the BlackBerry technology, does not, however, provide country-wise subscriber numbers.

The government had sent a notice late last year directing BlackBerry service providers to stop services by December 31 citing security concerns.

The department of telecom had said it could not monitor BlackBerry content as RIM's servers were located in Canada and other sites outside India.

In March, the telecom ministry gave operators an extension and assured them that this value-added service would not be banned, but was subject to RIM complying with the government's security requirements.

RIM has since agreed to work with the government to enhance security aspects of the service. "RIM operates in more than 130 countries around the world and respects the regulatory requirements of governments. RIM does not comment on confidential regulatory matters or speculation on such matters in any given country," a spokesperson said.

Meanwhile, other operators like state-owned BSNL and Datacom (a subsidiary of consumer goods major Videocon Industries) are also planning to launch BlackBerry services.

BSNL Chairman and Managing Director Kuldeep Goyal said that the telecom major is in talks with BlackBerry to offer the services to the BSNL subscribers.

Videocon CMD Venugopal Dhoot confirmed that BlackBerry services would be one of the value-added services that would be launched when the company begins GSM mobile operations in the country.

For this, the company was recently given a licence and allotted spectrum, radio frequencies that enable wireless communications.

While Idea Cellular officials declined to comment, other operators like Spice and Aircel and new entrants like Unitech were also believed to be looking at launching the services.

Hyderabad-based Frontline Technologies, an Airtel partner, has launched a website to sell BlackBerry accessories.

BlackBerry initially launched services in India under an exclusive tie-up with Bharti Airtel, which ended in February 2006 after which other operators began offering the service.