By Manoj Govindassamy - { 10/03/10 }
STel shuts down mobile services in Himachal, Bihar, Orissa – Chinese network equipments security breach ?
S Tel Private Limited (S Tel) is a joint venture between Siva Group (formerly Sterling Infotech Group) and Bahrain Telecommunications Company (Batelco) and is the latest entrant in the India Telecom bandwagon. We spoke about the company here and about its tariff plans here .
S Tel has acquired Unified Access Services Licenses (UASL) and spectrum to operate in six Category C circles – Orissa, Bihar, Himachal Pradesh, North East, Assam and Jammu & Kashmir. These licenses will enable the company to provide Unified Mobile service, wireless broadband and innovative Value Added Services (VAS) covering a population of over 226 million across these circles.
S Tel has been operating in Himachal Pradesh, Bihar and Orissa since December’09 and has over 10 lakhs wireless subscribers now. But, Department Of Telecommunication (DoT) has asked the company to stop its wireless services in all the circles immediately citing the security reasons. The company isn’t fully aware of the roadblock and on what basis the operations has been asked to stop.
Security breaches in the equipments used by STel could be the main reason though. Network equipments used by STel is manufactured by China’s ZTE and can potentially leak secret information to unauthorized persons or even to Chinese government :). But, DoT or STel haven’t confirmed the reasons.
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