India's foreign investment promotion board (FIPB) has agreed to convene to examine the recent US security committee report into Huawei and ZTE.

 

Department of economic affairs secretary Aravind Marayam has called a meeting of the FIPB to discuss whether the risks detailed in the October report are applicable to India, the Economic Times said.

 

The board has been tasked with deciding whether India's foreign investment rules need to change, and whether India needs to take pre-emptive steps to secure its networks.

 

Huawei and ZTE, both of which have local subsidiaries in the vital Indian market, have repeatedly denied the allegations alluded to in the US report.

 

Huawei India told ET it is fully compliant with all Indian regulatory and legal norms. It provided a reminder that it was the first vendor operating in India to sign the government's telecom security policy agreement.

 

In 2010, Huawei even took the unprecedented step of offering to share its source code to be vetted by security experts appointed by the Indian government.

 

Huawei agreed to the concession after the government briefly banned the use of gear from Chinese vendors earlier in the year. The ban was lifted after two months.

 

Meanwhile, Indian operators and new subscribers to mobile services have been complaining about strict new security norms covering the activation of new SIMs.

 

 

The new rules are forcing new users to wait between three and seven days before their SIM is activated. The delay is due to a new requirement that telcos wait until receiving a real customer application form, rather than a scanned copy from point-of-sale, before activating services.

 

The new rules, introduced earlier in the month, are an attempt to make mobile subscriptions more traceable in response to reports of mobile phones being used to plan terror attacks.

 

But operators fear the rules could accelerate an ongoing slowdown in the rate of new customer additions.