Nod for TRAI M2M views: Telecom panel caps pre-launch network testing at 180 days

The Telecom Commission (TC) on Friday accepted the recommendations of the Trai on network testing before commercial launch by operators, but capped the testing period outside the company to 180 days.

“Although Trai left extensions beyond 90 days to the DoT, the TC felt there should be an absolute finality to it, so it should be capped only to 180 days. Extensions cannot be made in an arbitrary manner, but DoT will have to formulate a clear guidelines for giving extensions beyond 90 days,” telecom secretary Aruna Sundararajan told reporters after the meeting of the Telecom Commission.

The regulator had recommended that testing for the purpose of their own employees can be for an unlimited duration, but if it is done outside the company with live customers, it must be limited to 5% of a circle and should be for 90 days. For a period beyond 90 days, the operator will have to seek DoT’s permission.

The commission, the apex decision making body in the Department of Telecommunications (DoT), also approved Trai’s recommendations on M2M, or machine to machine, communications. The commission has said all the telecom operators holding any licence will be allowed to provide connectivity. However, a separate circular will be issued for this and these entities will have to register themselves separately as M2M service providers.

An M2M apex body, which will have representations from other regulatory authorities like the NHAI, CERC, etc, will be created.

The Telecom Commission also directed the DoT to create a national trust centre to certify devices and applications for M2M communications. This will include imported devices as well.

On cloud services, the high-level panel has favoured a light touch regulation. “We should encourage self regulation to begin with and cloud service providers will be asked to form industry associations, which will be registered with DoT. DoT can issue directions to these bodies. It can withdraw registration of companies if it finds breaches. A cloud service advisory group comprising all stakeholders will also be constituted,” Sundararajan explained.

The commission decided that for now no regulatory intervention is necessary on the interoperability and portability in cloud services and the industry bodies would be tasked for promoting interoperability, she said.

Telecom Regulatory Authority of India