Economic Times | March 29, 2011 | Joji Thomas Philip
NEW DELHI: The United States government will seek changes in India’s policies on telecom security and encryption in its next meeting with the telecoms department officials here, an executive aware of the development told ET.
Also on the agenda is liberalizing internet telephony in India. Telecoms regulator Trai had recommended that full-fledged internet telephony as early as 2008, but the government is yet to act on it.
The US Trade Representative taking up these issues assumes importance since American companies have complained about tough security norms for import of telecom networks here, in addition to expressing concerns about the government’s plans to seek encryption to all communication and internet services including Gmail, Skype and BlackBerry amongst others.
The United States Trade Representative (USTR) is the American government agency responsible for developing and recommending trade policies to the US President, conducting trade negotiations at bilateral and multilateral levels and coordinating trade policy within the government.
The USTR has also sought inputs from trade and industry bodies in America on the issues it plans to take up with the Indian government.
In fact, India has already decided to scrap a controversial rule governing that made it mandatory for foreign equipment manufacturers to put their software in the equivalent of a sealed envelope and submit it to the government given in to the demands of Western vendors such as Ericcson, Nokia Siemens, Cisco and Alcatel-Lucent that refused to operate in the $100 billion market under the framework.
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