Pakistan Connection Holding Up Telcordia in India
When Telcordia Technologies, a vendor of back-end software for wireless and fixed-line networks, sold its software to several cellphone companies in Pakistan years ago, “just as it has done in 14 other countries,” it never dreamed that would be a roadblock to future.
Today, millions of Indian cellphone would like to use the services of the Piscataway, New Jersey-based Telcordia to switch wireless providers while keeping the same phone number, but according to The Wall Street Journal, India’s Home Ministry has raised objections that “partnering with Telcordia could compromise national security, effectively putting the company’s plans on hold.”
The gamesmanship comes as India and Pakistan prepare for their first official diplomatic talks since the Mumbai terrorist attacks of November 2008 in New Delhi. Indians are tired of the wait.
“It has been a long wait for India’s mobile phone subscribers for the much-touted mobile number portability to come in,” according to industry journal CIOL. “The country, which has been dwelling on the hopes of becoming MNP-ready for over three years now, remains so even today.”
The Journal reported that India’s is concerned about Telcordia’s “presence in Pakistan,” India’s traditional enemy, “according to notes from a January meeting of the Foreign Investment Promotion Board, the government body that reviews foreign investments.”
The holdup is probably due more to old-fashioned business favoritism than any genuine security concerns. “The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, and MNP service providers Syniverse (News – Alert) and Telecordia’s MNP Interconnection are at loggerheads over mobile number porting charges,” CIOL says. “The former fixed the MNP charges at Rs.19, whereas the two service providers wanted it to be anywhere between Rs 75-200.”
The FIPB actually approved the arrangement in February before the Home Ministry requested in November that it be revoked, concerned about the potential for unauthorized eavesdropping if the foreign vendor is allowed to manage number portability, according to the Journal.
Anuj Kapur, Telcordia’s India country head, told the Journal that “the company’s only business in Pakistan has been the sale of its standard clearinghouse software that helps cellphone companies coordinate user requests for transferring numbers to a new service.”
He said Telcordia welcomes an inspection from Indian authorities.
“There are operators with a vested interest to push this back,” Kunal Bajaj, managing director of telecom consulting firm BDA in New Delhi, told the Journal. “They’ll find any excuse to delay it.”
(Source: TMCnet)
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