RI reputation at stake in feud with RIM, BRTI says

The Indonesian Telecommunications Regulatory Body (BRTI) has defended the government’s dealings with BlackBerry producer RIM, saying that it was a necessary show of strength by Indonesia as a nation.

“We are squaring up against foreigners and we need to stand up. Indonesia should be respected as a big country,” BRTI member Heru Sutadi told The Jakarta Post on Friday.

In a meeting with the government on Thursday, to the dismay of Indonesian officials RIM announced that it favored Singapore over Indonesia for the location of its new server.

The government has subsequently threatened to end all BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) services in the country.

According to Heru, it was essential that a RIM server or data center was located in Indonesia in the interest of the country’s safety and security.

“If the server is not here in Indonesia, we cannot trace potential terrorism and corruption cases. We also have no idea what they are doing with data from Indonesian users,” he said.

Indonesia is the Southeast Asia’s top BlackBerry user, boasting 2.63 million users in 2010. That figure is expected to rise to 4 million users by the end of 2011.