Wednesday, 26 December 2012

What are Vigilance Telecom Monitoring cells

Telecommunications is the way forward in this socio-economic environment. And seeing the increasing number of telecom operators in the country, the Government has established multiple regulatory authorities to ensure a robust growth of the sector.

This was especially important at all the License Service Areas and Large Telecom Districts of the country. Its imperative to ensure that all service providers adhere to the license conditions and such a Telegraph Authority is was also needed to take care of network security issues. This is what lead to the creation of four Vigilance Telecom Monitoring cells (VTM) in Nov 2004.

Spread across the country in major metro cities - Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Chennai, these cells checked the all illegal telecom activities and monitored the existing operators. As the sector grew, the number of VTM cells also grew by 9 in 2006, 15 in January 2007 and 6 in March 2007. Today, these 34 cells are fulfilling Vigilance, Monitoring and Security functions throughout the country.

As of 5th August 2008, the name of VTM Cells has been changed to Telecom Enforcement, Resource and Monitoring (TERM) but the function remains the same – The smooth implementation of the government's telecom policy. Further details can be seen on - http://www.dot.gov.in/vtm/vtm.htm
As technical support to the TERM, under the Department of Telecom, the Telecommunication Engineering Centre or the TEC was formed. The aim of the TEC is to “Develop world-class standards and testing processes for certification of telecom equipment and networks for conformance to quality requirements”.

It is a technical body that has the clear mission to
  1. “Draw specifications for establishing state-of-the-art seamlessly interoperable networks, and certification thereof for conformance to quality requirements;
  2. Lay down technical parameters to ensure adherence to defined QoS and SLA;
  3. Implement mandatory certification procedure for all telecom products for conformance to technical, interoperability, EMI/EMC, security, safety, health requirements;
  4. Carry out testing and certification of equipment and networks;
  5. Draw guidelines for disaster resilient network, and for disaster management and recovery;
  6. Provide technical support and inputs to DoT and other government departments;
  7. Provide technical support to telecom service providers for operation and development of telecom network”
With such specialized authorities in place, there is no way that Cell operators can put their profits ahead of the people it serves. Cell technology and its implementation in India is and always will remain and safe means of communication and a path to a bright future.

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