Experts to take a call on telecom FDI norms

Following the recent extension of time for abiding by FDI guidelines in telecom by four months, the department of telecommunications has formed a technical group to examine the issue of remote access and suggest changes in the current guidelines.

This group is headed by N Balakrishnana from the information services division at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, and has representatives from the department, private and state-owned operators, and industry experts.

The group will study procedures "" technical and security related "" that other countries, which permit remote access in telecom networks, have in place and will advise the government on the same, DoT sources said.

The current guidelines, announced in November 2005, do not permit global carriers to monitor their networks in India from locations outside the country.

As a first step, this group was briefed by a UK team on the security practice requirements adopted by British Telecommunications while allowing remote access on its networks.

"BT explained that it followed a segregation of supplier access into separate domains for each manufacturer while permitting them to have remote access on its network. The company has a dedicated supplier gateway to include strong authentication, access control and full audit," a member of the expert group said.

Besides, BT, in a presentation to the group, has highlighted its ability to isolate remote access for individual users from group users. It had also presented to the DoT its traffic-anomaly detection and intrusion deployments, which identify and protect against unusual and malicious access, the member added.

The BT team comprised Group Security Director Mark Hughes, Engineering Services Director Bob Groves, Information and Network Security Director Bob Nowill, and Rat McKeown, director, security resilience and business continuity.

The move comes as limiting remote access would have affected business and investments in India. Besides, it is also against international practices.

Global telecom majors have also pointed out that Indian carriers enjoyed the provision of remote access outside the country.