Govt bans Nokia pushmail service

The government has asked telecom service providers to bar Nokia’s proposed -- pushmail or powermail -- service until it puts in place a legal monitoring system.


The Home Ministry, in its communication to Department of Telecom, has requested it to advice telecom service providers not to launch Nokia's proposed pushmail/powermail service till the company set up facility to allow security agencies to intercept it.

Messaging services from hand set maker Nokia involve push email for companies and consumers and enables mobile users with compatible Nokia cellphones to manage multiple email accounts from widely used email services like Yahoo!, Gmail, Rediff to Sify. Nearly 50 per cent of Nokia's E Series business phones sold in the country gets activated for e-mails.
The government had earlier raised security issues with the hugely popular BlackBerry Enterprise Mail Services (EMS), demanding its Canadian makers – Research in Motion (RIM) — to provide solutions to intercept messages.

Discussions with RIM officials are on going, as the company is still unable to provide a satisfactory solution to intercept messages on EMS.

Import norms

Meanwhile the Ministry of Home Affairs has asked Department of Telecom to finalise norms for importing telecom equipment to address the issue and modify the security template at the earliest.

Home Secretary Gopal K Pillai told Telecom Secretary R Chandrasekhar in a letter that finalisation of security template has been pending for a long time after service providers and vendors raised concerns over the norms framed by Department of Telecom.

The delay in finalising security norms for import of telecom equipments is hurting service providers as they are unable to roll out several of their newer services.