TSPs urge DoT to consider Huawei plea for inclusion in list

The near identical letters sent by Association of Unified Telecom Service Providers of India (AUSPI) and Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) to Telecom Secretary R Chandrasekhar early this month were sent to security agencies for comments, official sources said today.

The letters were sent even as the security agencies coming under the Home Ministry have pressed for a thorough review about the operations of Chinese telecom companies in the country, the sources said.

COAI represents the telecom operators using GSM technology while AUSPI is an association of CDMA and Dual Technology telecom operators.

The AUSPI in its letter requested the DoT to look into the representation of Huawei Telecommunications(India) for consideration as a domestic manufacturer and include it in its list. The list of domestic manufacturers circulated by DoT does not contain the name of the Indian unit of the Chinese company, it said.

Asked to comment about the letters, company spokesperson Suresh Vaidyanathan said, "Huawei has been in India for more than a decade and we stand fully committed to the Indian Telecom growth story.

"As part of our long term commitment, Huawei has also established a state-of-art India manufacturing and Research and Development Centres which stands for global excellence and local commitment."

A meeting to review Indian operations of Huawei and ZTE, another Chinese telecom company, was recently held in the backdrop of the US calling the two firms a threat to American national security.

Both the companies, however, maintained that there was nothing wrong in their operations and that they would be complying with all security norms of the Indian government.