TelecomLive April 2024

[ News Bytes ] www.telecomlive.com 59 TelecomLIVE April 2024 President Donald Trump. Net neutrality rules bar internet service providers from blocking or throttling traffic or offering paid fast lanes. USTelecom CEO Jonathan Spalter of the group, whose members include AT&T, Verizon, SpaceX and others, called the effort "entirely counterproductive, unnecessary, and an anti-consumer regulatory dis- traction." NCTA - The Internet & Television Association, representing major internet service providers includ- ing Comcast, said the plan would "seriously jeopardize our nation's collective efforts to build and sustain reliable broadband in rural and unserved communi- ties," and said it would result in "years of litigation and uncertainty." DoT asks Telcos to deactivate USSD-based call forwarding service DoT has asked telcos to deactivate USSD (unstruc- tured supplementary service data)-based call forward- ing service from April 15 in a bid to curb fraud and misuse. This follows growing reports of fraudsters convinc- ing mobile phone users to activate call forwarding to other phone numbers through the USSD service, so as to be able to steal confidential information, such as OTP. Mobile users avail of the USSD service by dial- l i n g c o d e s o n t h e i r keypads. It is often used for checking prepaid balance or the IMEI num- ber. The service can also be used for activating unconditional call for- warding services, which DoT said is beingmisused for unwarranted activi- ties. BSNL dials Nokia, ZTE to integrate legacy networks with 4G BSNL has sought the intervention of gear mak- ers - Finland's Nokia and China's ZTE - to integrate its legacy 2G and 3G net- work with its new 4G network which has been developed domestically by C-DoT. The ' core parenting' is being under- taken in telco's northern and western zones with a select number of network sites. The core of the 4G network has been devel- oped indigenously by C- DoT with radio equip- ment being supplied by Tata group company Tejas Networks and Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), also a unit of the Tata Group, acting as the systemintegrator. C-DoT has previously said it has undertaken "successful trials of the indigenous 4G core in BSNL commercial net- work" at Chandigarh and Ambala. Currently, services are being offered from a testbed or PoC core net- work, and once regular core is ready byMay-June timeframe, it will bring redundancies to the sys- tem, and would be able to handle more than 1 lakh sites, a C-DoT official said. From PoC test bed core, currently 1,500 sites are working with 2 lakh concurrent users and 5 lakhunique customers. Last year, TCS, a Tata group company, bagged around Rs 15,000 cr order from BSNL under phase IX.2 program, on the back of proof-of- concept (PoC) in Ambala and Chandigarh, and is deploying RAN through i t s Benga l u ru - ba s ed subsidiary Tejas Net- works. Under the phase IX.2 expansion, TCS has com- mercially deployed 4,667 sites in northern and western zones encom- passing 12 states, while only site surveys were undertaken in telco's eastern and southern zones as ofMarch 2024.