Friday, June 29, 2012

India Bars Chinese Telecom Hardware On Security Concerns

Somewhere, Eric Schmidt is smiling.

According to Bloomberg, India is blocking the sale of networking equipment to domestic carriers in the country by China-based telecom hardware makers Huawei and ZTE due to security concerns.

The story says at least four phone companies have been denied clearance from the Indian government to buy equipment from the two companies. India is the world’s second largest mobile phone market, trailing only China in number of users. The piece says the country is “stepping up scrutiny of imported switches and routers as phone operators plan to roll-out high speed services later this year.”

Bloomberg notes that the carriers have been denied approval to purchase hardware from a number of additional Chinese companies, including Lenovo.

The Financial Times reported yesterday that the country’s Telecommunications Department informed the office of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh that requests for importing Chinese manufactured hardware where being turned down on security grounds:

“Proposals for procurement of equipment from Chinese original equipment manufacturing vendors have not been recommended due to security concerns,” the Department of Telecommunications wrote this week in correspondence to the prime minister�s Office, seen by the Financial Times. “Therefore, the proposals from the service providers for purchase of Chinese equipment is turned down.”

The Bloomberg piece notes that there have been reports that hackers traced back to China have infiltrated Indian government computers.

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