Home Ministry raises objections on Telecom policy provisions
In a slew of objections over the NTP-12, which was passed by the Union Cabinet last week, the Home Ministry has also asked the Department of Telecom to ensure that in all policies related to number portability, law enforcement agencies are consulted.
On 'one-nation-one number' policy, the Ministry said it had no objections on removing the roaming charges but restrictions on roaming facility may have to be imposed in respect of certain regions and circles on security considerations from time to time.
The
policy
will
not
be
applicable
in
restricted
areas
like
Jammu
and
Kashmir
and
the
Northeast
as
Home
Ministry
has
imposed
restrictions
on
providing
roaming
facilities
on
pre-paid
mobile
subscribers.
Among
the
nine
issue
pointed
out
by
the
Ministry
in
its
note
about
the
NTP-12,
Voice
over
Internet
Protocol
(VoIP)
also
figures
prominently.
"Enabling and enforcement of VoIP facility, Ministry of Home Affairs and Law Enforcement Agencies should be consulted suitably at implementation stage," the note said.
Mushrooming of unregistered VoIP or Internet Telephony has become a security problem as the origin of caller and time of call cannot be ascertained prompting central agencies to ask service providers to come up with a solution within a month.
There have been series of meetings of security agencies with DoT, National Technical Research Organisation and service providers have failed to come up with any solution to block the unregistered VoIP, who operate from outside the boundaries of the country.
PTI