Govt threatens to ban BlackBerry, Skype

India has given Internet telephony pioneer Skype and the makers of BlackBerry handsets a deadline to fall into line with strict security-monitoring regulations or be blocked, a report said.

India's intelligence officials have long complained that they are unable to decipher encrypted data sent on Blackberry handsets, made by Canadian firm Research In Motion, or intercept calls on Skype.

The government has threatened to ban or block BlackBerry and Skype services if the companies fail to adhere to a 15-day deadline to make data available in formats that can be monitored, a leading business newspaper said.

Google has been asked to ensure emails on its Gmail service can be deciphered, though no deadline has been issued, the paper said.

"The latest development indicates that security agencies are again finding it difficult to intercept or decipher messages sent through BlackBerry phones," the paper said.

The Indian telecommunications ministry was unable to comment when contacted by AFP.

India, which faces a strengthening home-grown Maoist insurgency and constant threats from Islamist groups, is highly sensitive about the potential risks of technology.

The government has been restricting imports from Chinese telecom equipment manufacturers because of Indian intelligence agency fears that "spyware" could be embedded in the equipment.

It has also restricted the use of mobile phones in violence-wracked Indian Kashmir, where pay-as-you-go phones and the use of text messages have been curtailed. The area is a hotbed of anti-India activity.

Standard phone charger coming soon

An energy efficient standard charger for all mobile phones will soon be introduced in the global market, said International Telecommunication Union (ITU), a leading United Nations agency for Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) issues.

ITU officials announced on the first day of World Telecommunication Development Conference (WTDC-10) that standard mobile phone charger is ready to be introduced in the market. The new Universal Charging Solution (UCS) underlines the role of ICT in providing solutions towards mitigating climate change.

Director of ITU's Telecommunication Standardisation Bureau (TSB), Malcolm Johnson, told reporters on the sidelines of the conference that it was a significant step in reducing the environmental impact of mobile charging.

He said UCS would reduce 13.6 million tonnes of CO2 emissions each year and 82,000 tonnes of redundant chargers.

Johnson said the telecom industry led the development of UCS and hence it would be universally accepted by the telecom companies.

The standardisation of technology enables the same charger to be used for all future handsets, regardless of make and model. It will cut the number of chargers produced, shipped and subsequently discarded as new models become available.

The new standard will mean users worldwide will be able to charge their mobiles anywhere from any available charger, while also reducing the energy consumed while charging.

The new UCS standard was based on input from the GSMA, which predicts a 50 per cent reduction in standby energy consumption.

Telcos oppose 11-digit numbers

All mobile firms, with the exception of Reliance Communications and the Tata Teleservices, have asked telecom regulator Trai to continue with the existing system of 10-digit mobile number format and have opposed the proposal to move towards 11-digit mobile numbers.

Responding to the Trai’s consultation process on this issue, most mobile firms have suggested that digits between ‘2’ and ‘9’ be opened up for mobile telephony so that the current 10-digit format be retained as against the current policy where levels ‘9’ and sublevels of ‘8’ and ‘7’ are only used for mobile numbers.

Over 90% of the mobile numbers begin with ‘9’ as this level has been completely opened up for mobile telephony. Off late, the Department of Telecom has also opened up sublevels in ‘8’ and ‘7’ for mobile telephony, which has resulted in cellular phone numbers beginning with this digit.

Most operators have taken the stance that currently many levels -- 2 , 3, 4, 5, 6 & 7 -- were reserved for fixed line services and these levels are highly underutilised . “For the past few years there has been a constant decline in the number of fixed line subscribers in India.

In such a case, it is unfair to keep six billion numbers reserved for fixed line subscribers, whereas the actual number is even below 40 million. This is a clear wastage of the precious numbering resource,” the Cellular Operators Association of India, the body representing all GSM operators said.

“Considering the relative size of the subscriber bases in the mobile and fixed sectors and the exponential growth of mobile subscriptions, it is worthwhile to free up the fixed line numbering resources and re-allocate some levels to mobile services.

In view of this, we believe that there should be reorganisation of existing fixed line numbering scheme to get at least 3 levels vacated from the existing levels and allocated for mobile services. This would give provisioning for many more millions of subscribers within the existing ‘10’ digit numbering scheme, which would be in consumer interest,” the COAI added.

Freeing up one level will provide about a billion new mobile numbers. On the other hand, Reliance Communications and Tatas are of the view that while the 10-digit numbers can be used for the next three years, for long term, from 1st April, 2013, the country must move ‘towards the implementation of 11 digit numbering scheme so as to address the exponential growth needs of the sector and the unforeseen requirement resulting out of future technologies and services’.

Both these telcos have also pointed out that since fixed line services are in continuous decline mode, it would be not be appropriate to change the numbers of customers.

Telenor launches India ops

Norwegian telecom firm Telenor announced the launch of its services in seven out of 22 mobile zones in India on Thursday, amid an intense tariff war in the world's fastest-growing wireless market.

The company said it would charge 29 paise per minute for local calls and 49 paise for national long distance calls, staying away from a per-second billing plan that most mobile operators have recently announced.

Telenor, which last year bought into a nascent telecom firm of Indian realty Unitech Ltd, launched its services under the Uninor brand. Intense competition is driving drastic cuts in call charges in the world's second-most populous country.

Tata Teleservices, the No. 6 operator, was the first to launch per-second billing earlier this year, deviating from the industry norm of per-minute billing. The offer was a roaring success.

Mobile services leaders Bharti Airtel, Reliance Communications and Vodafone Essar have all followed suit to launch the per-second billing, which analysts have said will significantly dent profit margins.

Number portability from Dec 31

India will introduce mobile number portability on December 31, a move that could further intensify the stiff competition in th
e world's fastest-growing wireless market and push call charges lower.

Mobile Number Portability (MNP), which allows users to retain their number even if they switch operators, will be introduced in two phases, the telecoms regulator said, first in the metro cities and the so-called Category A telecom zones and in other areas by March 20.

MNP helps in "increasing competition between the service providers and acts as a catalyst for the service providers to improve their quality of service," the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) said on its website.

The regulator also notified certain charges associated with MNP and said switching charges for users must not exceed Rs 19 rupees.

Four new firms including ventures of international telecom operators Telenor, Etisalat and Batelco are set to start services in India this year and MNP would make it easy for them to lure existing subscribers.

India bans import of Chinese phones

Import of Chinese mobile phones without unique identity code numbers has been banned, India's commerce ministry announced.

"Import of mobile handsets without International Mobile Equipment Identify (IMEI) number or with all-zero IMEI is prohibited with immediate effect," the Director General of Foreign Trade said in a notification.
IMEI - a unique 15-digit number - helps authorities trace the handset that has been used to make a call.
The Department of Telecom (DoT) had earlier directed telephone operators to disconnect services to subscribers who own handsets that do not have the IMEI code as such phones posed a security threat.
However, since then, the Cellular Operators Association of India has developed a software for embedding genuine identity code - issued by the global association of telecom operators - on handsets without the requisite IMEI numbers.