Huawei and ZTE appoint nodal officers seeking access to trusted portal

As we earlier reported that Chinese telecom gear makers Huawei and ZTE were barred from the government portal that would have a list of all the trusted telecom operators; the gear makers have now appointed respective nodal officers to connect with the telcos and National Cyber Security Coordinator (NCSC) to provide information regarding telecom equipment that telcos may agree to purchase from. The information was rolled out by industry executives, which marked that Chinese gear makers are following the process to have approval to the government portal.

Chinese telecom gear makers Huawei and ZTE are struggling to gain access to the trusted portal curated by the Government of India. However, both entities are leaving no stone unturned to enter into the portal and provide equipment in the Indian market. The rivals of Huawei and ZTE, which are Nokia, Ericsson, Cisco, HFCL and other telecom operators, have already received access to the portal during the beta phase.

As reported by ET Telecom, there are ample domestic and international entities that are yet to receive access to the portal. As per an unknown person who is familiar with the matter, Huawei is following the process which has been laid by the authority. Under the national security directive, Huawei has not been banned, and the government has no intention to do it. Also, the nodal officers appointed by Huawei and ZTE are working with its telco partners.

Since there has been a lot of noise around the privacy concerns and threats linked with Chinese telecom gear makers equipment, nations around the globe have been barring Chinese gear makers from their soil. Back on Tuesday, the Indian government launched a trusted telecom portal under the Cyber wing of the National Security Secretariat, which mandates telecom service provider to use telecom equipment from authentic sources only. The newly launched platform will ask for the original hardware and software details of the telecom equipment manufactured by gear makers. Also, the authority would be able to track the progress of approval of their applications. TelecomTalk