PMO clears telecom gear imports

The decks for import of telecom equipment by operators, especially from China, was cleared today with the intervention of the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO). The PMO directed the telecom ministry that both the earlier security vetting regime as well as the new agreement, based on stricter restrictions, should be operated concurrently, with telecom operators being free to adopt either.

With this direction, the department of telecommunications (DoT) will clear requests on import of equipment by leading operators, which have been stuck for over eight months and were jeopardising the launch of 3G services. Reliance Communications and Tata Teleservices were among those who had asked for permission to import equipment from China. Clearances for other equipment from European vendors is also being given, based on the older agreement.

Dot had mandated in December 2009 that operators importing telecom equipment could do so after self-certification that these would comply with all security concerns. However, under pressure from intelligence agencies, the policy was reviewed and new strictures were added last month, in a draft policy agreement which was to be signed by operators with the vendors. The draft included sharing of the source code and design of the equipment in an ‘escrow’ account, a fine equivalent to 100 per cent of the purchase order in case spyware or trapdoors were discovered later on in the equipment and other conditions.

The new draft policy was attacked by European manufacturers, including Ericsson among others. They said they would not part with the source code as this was their own intellectual property right. However, Chinese company ZTE had agreed to comply with the new rules.

The PMO has said concerns have been raised on the provisions of the template of the agreement (the amended one) between operators and vendors. It has now asked DoT to examine, in consultation with the ministry of home affairs, whether there is merit in any of the concerns. And, whether in light of international best practice, some alternative mechanism to resolve these issues needs to be put in place. PMO has given two months for a solution.