New Delhi, India: The Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), a body representing primarily incumbent GSM operators in the country, said that the new simplified Equipment Security Agreement, which mandates the implementation of Location-based infrastructure, could cost the Indian telecom operators approximately USD 5 billion.
According to the COAI, the agreement requires operators to maintain location information up to accuracy of 50 meters. For customers specified by Security Agencies, it will be implemented by June 1, 2012, and for all customers by June 2014. However, the Indian government has been looking at this accuracy issue since October 26, 2009, observed a report published in MediaNama.
According to the report, the COAI raised two concerns:- The cost for this should not be borne only by the telecom operators: “Discussions with providers of LBS solutions have also raised serious concerns on the feasibility of meeting government’s strict requirements. Based on, the technical standards for accuracy levels as defined by the Government, the scale of implementation, the execution of the project and the complexities involved there is no solution at present that meets the DoT mandate.” There’s also no way of ascertaining whether this USD 5 billion approximation is accurate or not.- Consumer backlash on privacy: But the COAI raises another, important point: “Further, the industry is concerned about a back lash from customers on privacy as a result of a lack of clear policy guidelines on the matter.”
Source: MediaNama
