After a brief respite, the security issues pertaining to Chinese vendors Huawei and ZTE have raised their head once again. The security wing of the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has issued a new report in this context, outlining the potential threats the use of such equipment may entail.
In its report, the security wing has stated that apart from such vendors, the country must also take precautionary measures against equipment sourced from the West.
To mitigate the potential threat, the report suggests that India ought to ensure that the bulk of its telecom equipment is manufactured locally. In this context, DoT has already approved the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India?s (TRAI) suggestion that domestic operators source 65 per cent of their annual hardware and network-related equipment from Indian companies by 2020.
In so far, India had two separate policy guidelines for the import of telecom equipment for Chinese and Western vendors. In 2011, DoT unveiled a new set of security rules, which brought all the vendors under a common security framework.
