India reviews recent Telecom gear Import Rules.

NEW DELHI: India is reviewing telecoms gear import rules that it unveiled earlier this year to address security concerns, the country's top telecoms official said, after companies expressed difficulties implementing stricter rules including sharing their hardware and software codes.

Rentala Chandrashekhar, secretary of India's Department of Telecommunications , told Reuters in an interview that the government would allow until early December gear imports through a "parallel process" where firms do not need to adhere to the new rules, but need clearance from security agencies.

In July, India tightened rules for telecom gear imports, saying vendors must allow inspection of their equipment and share design and source codes in escrow accounts, in a move to address security concerns that had earlier led to barring Chinese firms from supplying telecoms gear in India.

"The process is on to review these stipulations in light of the feedback given by the companies," Chandrashekhar said. "Once that process of review is completed, then a view will be taken whether any changes are required (and) what are the changes which are required." Industry and government officials have said Chinese firms Huawei and ZTE have agreed to comply with the new set of rules, but European vendors such as Ericsson have expressed concerns.

Sweden's Ericsson, the world's biggest mobile networks maker, said this month it would not participate in auctions to supply GSM gear being held by Indian state carrier Bharat Sanchar Nigam [BSNL.UL], citing the company's demand that vendors give it access to hardware and software codes as one of the main reasons. Chandrashekhar said companies could seek exemptions on the new guidelines on a case-by-case basis, which would be vetted by security agencies while the telecoms ministry reviews the rules.

"There is also a review of how effective these measures have been and are likely to be in terms of meeting the security objectives," he said. Restrictions on Chinese gear makers and the tightened rules centred around India's suspicion that Chinese equipment could have spying technology embedded to intercept sensitive conversations and government documents.

As part of a broader electronic security crackdown, the government is also demanding access to intercept communications sent through highly secure BlackBerry devices of Canadian smartphone maker Research In Motion.

Officials have said Google and Skype would also be sent notices to set up local servers to allow full monitoring of email and messenger communications. India, which had threatened RIM with a ban if denied access to the data, gave a 60-day reprieve to the company at the end of August after being offered a solution to access some BlackBerry data, a move yet to be confirmed by the Canadian firm.

"The company seems to have offered some solutions to the security agencies which are being looked at," Chandrashekhar said. "We will come into the picture at an appropriate stage...we will review the situation after the security agencies have formulated their views on the solutions."

Source : economictimes.indiatimes.com