Huawei signs up MoU to setup US $ 13.5 million telecom equipment testing lab at Bangalore
Publish date: 01 Jul 2011 09:25:20 PM
India is setting up telecom equipment testing lab at Indian Institute of
Sciences, Bangalore
to conduct testing and certification of software and hardware of all foreign
telecom companies in collaboration with Chinese telecom equipment maker Huawei.
This will be big boon to Chinese company that had to contest the government's security
concern in the recent past. The test lab will have an estimated cost of US $
13.5 million (Rs. 60 crore).
The telecom minister Kapil Sibal said the
decision had been taken in view of the fact that 70-80 per cent of telecom
equipment are imported and have been deployed largely by the private service
providers. The IISc had simultaneously approached several vendors including
Cisco, Juniper, Huawei from the US,
Europe and Asia to share internal details of
their telecom equipment like detailed design document and internal architecture
which are vital for detailed testing. "Huawei responded proactively before
other vendors and hence requisite MoU got signed on June 15 between the IISC
and Huawei," Sibal said. He added that all the foreign vendors will have
to share their architecture for India
to develop its own security protocol. In case of any breach of security, the
service providers and vendors would be held responsible and it may lead to
cancellation of their licences and imposition of hefty penalties. In order to
set up domestic testing facility, the IISc had run a pilot project for Center
for Telecom testing and Security Certification.