India Permits Private Gateways, With Strings Attached

["Irfan Khan" <KhanIA@super.net.pk>]

Date sent:      	Tue, 27 Jul 1999 00:11:37 +0500

India Permits Private Gateways, With Strings Attached 

By Uday Lal Pai
InternetNews India Correspondent 

[July 26, 1999--MUMBAI] The government of India has finalized 
guidelines for setting up of private international Internet gateways 
by Internet Service Providers (ISPs).  

The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) is all set to process 
formal applications from private operators desirous to set up own 
gateways. This breaks Videsh Sanchar Nigam Limited's (VSNL) monopoly 
on Internet gateway services.  

Months after unveiling its Internet policy, the Indian government was 
taking its time in drawing up guidelines for setting up international 
gateways because of national security issues. In the absence of 
security guidelines, ISPs could not establish their gateways and were 
hence, forced to lease capacities from VSNL. Now, it is mandatory for 
the private gateway providers to connect all routers above 2 Mbps 
with monitoring facilities of national security agencies such as the 
Intelligence Bureau (IB) and RAW.  

DoT said under these norms, only ISPs are permitted to set up 
gateways for international traffic. This means foreign equity 
participation in international gateway projects will be capped at 49 
per cent. The ISPs will also free to establish international links 
through satellites or undersea cables. No pre-qualification criteria 
have been incorporated in the guidelines.  

The permission is not required for use of encryption up to 40-bit key 
length. For stronger encryption, the de-cryption key split into two 
parts is to be deposited with the telecom authority.  

However, the service providers will have to bear expenses to provide 
monitoring equipment for security provisions, which is expected to 
cost around US$9,523 (Rs 400,000) per gateway location and/or large 
ISP node. They are also expected to provide office space and a local 
telephone line, latter for facilitating security agencies' access to 
the ISPs' network.  

The application form on a prescribed format will be available with 
DoT for US $ 476 (Rs 20,000) which includes processing fee. A 
committee comprising representatives of DoT, the Department of 
Electronics (DoE), the Defense ministry, Department of Space (DoS), 
the National Infomatics Centre (NIC) and the National Association of 
Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM) will clear the projects. 
Soon after the ISP policy was announced by the government in November 
last year, several ISPs including Satyam Infoway, Bharti-BT, Global 
Electronic Commerce Services and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited 
(MTNL) contacted DoT expressing interest in setting up their own 
gateways.  

However, according to the new guidelines, gateway operators are 
allowed to lease their capacities to other ISPs. Smaller ISPs would 
benefit from this norm.  

A gateway has to be installed within the service area for which 
license is obtained. However, its capacity can be leased to ISPs who 
provide services even outside the service area of gateway operators. 
The link between an ISP and a gateway operator will be through the 
networks of DoT, Indian Railways, PowerGrid Corporation and private 
basic service operators.  

ISPs have told internetnews.com that they are apprehensive about the 
lack of clarity. "It is not clear whether we will be permitted to set 
up our own earth stations and also whether we will be free to 
approach foreign satellites for leasing transponders" says CEO of a 
Mumbai-based ISP who wanted to remain anonymous for reasons obvious. 
"Failing this, allowing us to set up our own gateways will have no 
means." he pointed out.  

The ISPs are afraid that ultimately they will end up with same 
handicaps as earlier. There is no point in having gateway and still 
depend on VSNL or some other government agencies for earth stations, 
they felt. The telecom policy does not permit hiring of transponders 
from foreign satellites. DoT norms announced this week are not clear 
on how DoT will fulfil the high demand for bandwidth and if they will 
need to approach DoS to lease transponders.  

http://asia.internet.com/1999/7/2602-india.html