Huawei, ZTE may be kept locked out of India’s telecom industry: Report

Chinese telecom gear makers such as Huawei and ZTE may be kept locked out of India’s telecom industry as the Centre does not plan to issue trusted source certificates to these companies due to concerns around national security, Business Standard reported citing Department of Telecommunications (DoT) officials.

The re-entry of Chinese fashion major, Shein, in India through a joint venture with Reliance Industries led to expectations that Chinese gear makers may also be allowed in the country’s telecom industry, the report said.

The report, while citing unnamed telecom department officials, said that none of the major telecom operators have sourced “unauthorized equipment” so far.

Both Huawei and ZTE have not yet received the trusted sources tag, while their European, US, and Indian rivals have already been secured them and and are receiving trusted products’ approvals to supply network equipment on a case-to-case basis.

Since the trusted sources regime came into effect, both Huawei and ZTE have largely engaged with Indian telecom operators Vodafone Idea and Bharti Airtel for servicing existing network maintenance contracts. They are only allowed to replace existing parts, with even network upgrades needing government clearances.

India in December 2020, approved the National Security Directive on Telecommunication Sector, which mandates service providers to purchase equipment from trusted sources.

The development comes as India’s top two telcos Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel are deploying their 5G networks in the country. Notably, both telcos have awarded 5G equipment contracts to Swedish Ericsson, Finnish Nokia, and South Korea’s Samsung, thereby excluding the Chinese vendors from the 5G race.

Earlier this year, Vodafone Idea awarded a fresh optical transmission equipment network order of around Rs 230 crore to ZTE for Gujarat, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh-Chhattisgarh (MP-CG) as the telco upgrades its network.

On the other hand, Airtel had last year awarded a telecom infrastructure expansion contract worth Rs 150 crore to Huawei. Under the deal, Huawei upgraded and expanded Airtel’s National Long Distance (NLD) network. Airtel had awarded a similar contract to Huawei worth Rs 300 crore in 2021.