DoT asks STel to stop its business in India
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New Delhi: Taking a major step in the interest of national security , Department of Telecom has asked new entrant in Indian telecom sector STel to stop their services in all of the three circles, Himachal Pradesh, Bihar and Orissa it has been operating from December last year. According to TRAI, STel had 506,179 wireless connections in all its three circles at the end of January 2010, so what of their subscribers? In 2008, STel had filed a writ petition against DoT advancing the cut-off date to give license from October 1 to September 25, 2007, which resulted in STel only getting license for six circles. A single Judge bench of the Delhi High Court had ruled in favor of STel on the 1st of July 2009, as did a division bench on the 24th of November last year. A hearing in the Supreme Court is scheduled to take place. And what exactly is this security threat? Till now DoT has not specified any particular security threats in their notice to the telecom operator, however there have been speculations that the following could be the possibilities; STel's network equipment is manufactured by China's ZTE may not have got security clearance. The Home Ministry might have objected to Bahrain based Batelco's investment in the venture. S Tel is a joint venture between Siva Group (formerly Sterling Infotech Group) and BMIC, a subsidiary of Bahrain Telecommunications Company (Batelco). Batelco had acquired 49 percent in Stel for $225 million in January 2009. If this was an issue, then why was Batelco allowed to invest in STel, reports MediNama.

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