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| India-Pakistan |
| Ban on China telecom gear may become diplomatic issue |
| 2010-05-01 |
| The ban on Chinese telecom equipment seems to be snowballing into a diplomatic issue between India and China. The Chinese Embassy has written to the Prime Minister seeking clarity on the Government's policy for procuring telecom equipment in the light of the security concerns raised against gear manufactured by Chinese firms such as ZTE and Huawei. In the past two months, the Department of Telecom has rejected all applications submitted by the operators to buy equipment from Chinese vendors due to security concerns. DoT officials said that the decision to reject the applications was based on inputs received by the Ministry of Home Affairs. Intelligence agencies are concerned about the possible presence of spyware or malware embedded into the telecom gear which could allow unfriendly countries to control the telecom network from remote locations. Earlier, the DoT had made it mandatory for operators to take clearance from the Government before buying any telecom equipment or software from foreign players. Though the rule applies to all foreign manufacturers, applications specifically linked to Chinese vendors have since been rejected by the DoT. A senior Government official said that a reply to the Chinese authorities will be given after consulting the Ministry of External Affairs since the ban could have implications on bilateral relations. Meanwhile, a Huawei spokesperson said that the company has not received official communication on the ban. “Nevertheless, we are deeply concerned and surprised to know about this development. Huawei India is currently evaluating and understanding the latest development and seeking clarifications from the authorities concerned. Huawei is willing to cooperate with all the relevant Indian Government agencies to help solve their concerns on the security issue in the interest and growth of the overall Indian telecom industry,' the spokesperson said. “It is the hope of Huawei and it is also in the interest of the industry that a fair and non-discriminatory policy to address this issue is in place and a mutually-beneficial and win-win resolution can be realised through transparent and sincere communication and cooperation,' he added. India is a huge market for all equipment vendors and the Chinese companies would not want to miss out on the opportunity. On the other hand, European and American vendors stand to gain from it since operators will be vary of entering into any new deals with the Chinese vendors given the Government stand. This could also have an impact on the new operators as they will have to rethink their network roll out strategy. Most of the new players were in the process of buying some part of their networks from the Chinese manufacturers. |
| Posted by:john frum |
| #1 Tibet Telecom©? I don't think so.... |
| Posted by: Frank G 2010-05-01 18:27 |