RIM Disappoints Indonesian Government for Not Finishing Its “Homework”

Blackberry Playbook Launch in Indonesia

RIM and the Indonesian government have had a somewhat mixed relationship to date.

The another manifestation of this feud occurred just recently as The Indonesian Ministry of Communication and Informatics was reportedly disappointed with Canadian smartphone maker RIM, following a meeting between the two parties held yesterday in Jakarta. RIM had finished some of its “homework” set by the Indonesian government, but the ministry adjudged that RIM hadn’t given clear answers on some issues.

The session was a progress report meeting for RIM commitments from the previous meeting on January 17th of this year. At that time RIM, the government, the house of representatives, and some Indonesian telecommunications providers discussed BlackBerry services in Indonesia, and RIM made four commitments to fulfill Indonesian government demands:

1. RIM will create after-sales service centers in Indonesia.
2. RIM will discuss the issue of lawful interception access to some secure BlackBerry services for Indonesian law enforcement.
3. RIM will censor/filter negative Internet content that violates Indonesia’s law, such as porn, gambling, and hate speech as it goes across its network.
4. RIM will build a Regional Network Aggregator in an undisclosed location. It will significantly reduce costs for carrier partners (Indonesian providers) and increase network performance for users.

BlackBerry Booth at Indonesia Cellular Show 2011

The ministry appreciated the fact that RIM implemented the promised filtering system on January 18th of this year, ahead of the deadline of January 21st. Indonesia’s telecommunications providers were already filtering in the same way before. The ministry will continue to monitor RIM’s consistency in its filtering standards.

The ministry was also satisfied with how RIM built 40 BlackBerry Authorized Customer Care Centers. RIM is still opening more, so the number of service centers will exceed government demands. The ministry will do follow up checks at these venues and monitor the quality of the services provided, to ensure they are not mere formalities.

While RIM has lived up to two out of the four commitments, the remaining two don’t appear to have satisfied Indonesian authorities. With regards to lawful interception access, RIM reported that it has coordinated with the Corruption Eradication Commission — although it remains unclear how RIM implemented the coordination.

Regarding the construction of a server plant/network aggregator in Indonesia, RIM’s answer remains uncertain. “Servers or network aggregators were already planned. But it still unclear whether it’ll be built in Indonesia or in other country,” Gatot S. Dewa Broto, the ministry’s Chief Spokesman said, quoting RIM’s answer.

The company’s reply was very unfortunate, since the existence of RIM’s servers in Indonesia is very important considering the number of Indonesian BlackBerry users. Gatot added:

At the conclusion of that meeting, we were disappointed, because RIM’s answers were unclear and the progress to fulfill its commitment is a little slow. There just few months remaining on the deadline …but we still try to be positive and give RIM chance to answer its promises.