The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) and the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) are together working out a plan to incorporate certain rules for remote access, software codes and other security standards in the contractual agreement between telecom equipment vendors and mobile service providers.
The new clauses would take care of the security concerns raised by intelligence agencies and the home ministry, a senior DoT official told Business Standard. It would also have certain security standards specified by law enforcement agencies, the official added.
Chinese telecom equipment firms Huawei and ZTE are facing tough times in India due to security concerns raised by the home ministry over their equipment. While the government maintains that there has been no ban on Chinese firms, no order of these firms has been cleared by DoT for the past six months, on the pretext of security clearance.
For inserting such clauses, DoT needs approval from vendors and service providers before taking a final decision. “We will soon have discussions with the concerned parties…the whole process is expected to be completed in the next two-three weeks,” the official said.
Subsequently, the license conditions would have to be changed, after approval from all sides.
Meanwhile, as an interim arrangement, DoT would come out with a list of some global certifying agencies, from where service providers would be able to test and certify their equipment. This would resolve the problem until DoT sets up its own testing and certifying lab. The project for setting up the lab and developing the software for testing has already been started but is likely to take another one to two years to be completed.
DoT had, last December, made it mandatory for all mobile telecom service companies to get security clearance for equipment before placing any order with vendors.
The mobile companies are against banning Chinese telecom equipment as these are low-priced compared to those from other global vendors. Last month, Tata Teleservices had proposed that foreign agencies be allowed to test networks.
