Last week, the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) issued an order asking all telecom licensees to register on Trusted Telecom Portal. According to DoT, many telecoms have not registered on the portal. Besides, the telecom licensees who have not submitted authorization letters for appointing a nodal officer for the portal also have to submit the same to the Designated Authority, the National Cyber Security Coordinator (NCSC). The new announcement is in line with the amendments in telecom licenses issued by DoT in March 2021.
Trusted Telecom Portal
The government launched Trusted Telecom Portal in June 2021 under the Cyber Wing of the National Security Council Secretariat (NCSC). Consequently, the telecom service providers must connect their networks only on those new devices designated as ‘trusted products’ from ‘trusted sources. Here, trusted products are those whose critical components and the products themselves are sourced from trusted sources. The service providers must access the portal and mark the telecom products and vendors from whom they intend to purchase the products. The details of the vendors, the products, their critical components and their sources are then populated into the portal by the TSPs and respective vendors, who will also be provided access to the portal. The government will evaluate the vendors and the sources of the components and decide the products as Trusted Sources and Trusted products. The approval is subsequently intimated to the vendor concerned and the applicant TSPs to proceed with their procurements. NCSC is the designated authority to conduct the assessment and issue approvals. A committee comprising members from relevant departments, ministries, industry and an independent expert will determine the clearance. The portal was designed and launched by CDoT, a research and development wing of the government. A beta version was earlier launched in April 2021. The initiative intends to improve supervision and facilitate effective control over nationwide telecom networks. The portal will act as a certifying window, and the authority can track the progress. If the telecom service provider plans to procure from a non-India registered OEM, the service provider has to give detailed information about the OEM. However, if the purchase is from an Indian OEM, the inputs are already provided in the portal by Indian OEMs.
