--- Research In Motion (Canadian based manufacturer of Blackberry) is bringing in the heavy artillery, the Canadian High Commissioner Malon. In a letter to A Raja, Malone opines that media leaks regarding the Blackberry security issue have infact aggravated the problem by detailing vulnerabilities. ET reports they are also concerned about representation at the Indian-end, pointing out that no headway has been made while demands on RIM (NSDQ: RIMM) keep increasing. Regular readers will remember the genesis of the issue. Tata Teleservices had applied seeking permission to launch Blackberry services and the DoT suddenly realized they had a security problem. Until recently, TTSL realized neither Airtel, Vodafone (NYSE: VOD), BPL nor Reliance had sought permission to launch Blackberry services and decided to go ahead without the DoT’s approval. RIM had given a commitment to the DoT to provide a solution, but probably a cost hurdle has forced them to put some legislative pressure on the DoT. According to IDC, India’s smart handheld devices (SHDs) market has gone past the three million mark in 2006 and was expected to grow about 80 percent in 2007. A case of smoke without fire considering none of the back and forth has stopped the Blackberry from continuing to be the current enterprise handset darling with around 400,000 corporate customers.

--- Reliance has said it will launch its GSM services at the end of the current financial year. It aims to set up a pan-India GSM and CDMA network covering 23,000 towns and 6 lakh villages starting with 8,000 towns and 2 lakh villages in the next two months, reaching approximately 97% of the Indian population. RComm was recently allocated startup GSM spectrum in North East and Assam. While the proposed talk plans only indicate a further nosedive it seems ARPU’s will continue to go south in the next year as well. ET reports Bharti’s ARPU has declined by over 12% in the last one year while its subscriber base grew by more than half. The price war have caused a margin worry with Airtel shrinking by 100 basis points. Until tele-density reaches a plain, the war for subscribers on a price instead of a services differentiation will continue. Churn is a moderate concern when you still have 70% of the market untapped.