Local Screening of Imported Gear to become Mandatory

The Department of Telecommunications (“DoT”) would make making necessary amendments to the telecom licensing conditions mandating the local screening of imported telecom equipment before its use.

Upon such amendments, it shall become legally binding for the telecom operators to use the imported telecom gear ass part of their networks only after the same has been certified by a local accredited testing lab. As per media reports, the rule would be applicable to all access service providers, including the telecom companies that have migrated to the Unified Licensing regime.

The setting-up of the testing labs was first proposed in 2010. Our previous posts regarding the setting-up of the testing labs are “Security Labs to Be Set-Up to Test Network Gear Used by Mobile Phone Companies” and “Testing Lab for Telecom Equipment to be Set-Up by the Government”.

The DoT has extended this deadline at various occasions earlier as well. The screening was expected to commence from July 1, 2014, however in the absence of a testing lab the screening was delayed. Refer our previous post “No Testing Lab for Telecom Products Set-Up: Screening Delayed”.

Presently, the DoT is reported to state that a suitable amendment would be issued as the security certification of telecom equipment only from authorised and certified agencies / labs within India has been extended to April 1, 2015. Thus, the local screening of imported gear would be mandatory from April 1, 2015.

In June 2014, the Government formed an inter-ministerial committee headed by the DoT to formulate and finalize the eligibility conditions for the telecom equipment testing labs in India. The Telecom Testing and Security Certification Centre of the DOT is involved in the formulation of the testing rules. Our previous post regarding the formulation of norms for screening is here.