The Hindu Business Line : Maran rules out unbundling of BSNL, MTNL fixed lines for private players

The Union Minister for Communications and Information Technology Minister, Mr Dayanidhi Maran, has ruled out unbundling of fixed lines of BSNL and MTNL for the broadband network of private telecom players. "Wireless is going to dominate the world and the cost of fixed line is more... unbundling will not work," he said on the sidelines of a seminar on cyber crimes organised by Nasscom on Wednesday.

Private telecom companies have been asking for permission to ride the wires of BSNL and MTNL to extend their broadband services, since the two public sector companies have a very wide fixed line network compared to the private companies.

Crime Threat

The Minister said the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) is operational and is entering into collaborations with leading IT vendors in the country with a view to taking necessary help from them and provide security to the cyber community.

"CERT-In has been set up to provide instant response and all necessary help in the area of cyber and information technology security to cyber community in India," he said.

Giving an account of cyber crimes, he said Web sites with .co.in and .gov.in addresses mostly fall prey to the targets as about 1,400 Indian Web sites have been attacked in the first half of this year alone.

The intrusions are both from within the country and outside. Fifty five per cent of such threats are from outside, said Mr Maran.

Legal Framework

The Minister also said that the IT Act is being amended to provide legal framework for certain type of cyber crimes such as data theft, transmission of images, video and voyeurism. "Provisions have also been proposed to assure the BPO industry with regard to data protection and breach of confidentiality," he said.

Giving the size of the IT industry in the country as $30 billion, he said that it is expected to grow at the rate of 30 per cent annually.

The number of Internet users in the country, currently at 40 million, is also expected to double in 2-3 years, he said.