Monday 9 May 2016

BSNL in advanced talks with Jio, Vodafone over 2G spectrum sharing agreement

State-owned BSNL is in advanced talks with Reliance Jio and Vodafone for signing a 2G roaming agreement this month. “We are in advanced stages for signing 2G intra-circle roaming agreement with Reliance Jio and Vodafone. I believe agreement with them should be signed this month,” BSNL Chairman and Managing Director Anupam Shrivastava told PTI.
Under the agreement, customers of Reliance Jio and Vodafone will get access to BSNL network where there is a coverage gap. The state-run firm has deep presence in rural areas as other companies have invested very conservatively due to low return on investments. Once the agreement is finalised, BSNL customers will also have access to the networks of Reliance Jio and Vodafone. In terms of mobile base stations, BSNL stands second in the country.
It has around 1.14 lakh and is in process of installing another 21,000 mobile towers. “Soon, we will start signing 3G intra-circle roaming agreement with other players. We are working on rates for 3G roaming agreement. Being a government firm, we need to have uniform rate for all companies,” Shrivastava said. With the telecom ministry objecting to the 3G-ICR among the telecom operators mainly Airtel, Vodafone and Idea Cellular, these players acquired customers using each others network in telecom circles where they did not have 3G spectrum.

Saturday 7 May 2016

Smartphone encryption technologies pose challenges to law enforcement agencies: Prasad

As Apple slugs it out with FBI on privacy issues, India Friday said strong encryption technology to secure data and communications in smartphones, including those made by the US-based firm, is a challenge for law enforcement agencies.
It said however that a tool for mobile forensics has been developed to handle smartphones including Apple.
“Smart phones including phones by Apple Inc. employ strong encryption to secure the data stored and to protect the communication. Such Encryption technologies pose challenges to Law Enforcement Agencies throughout the world including India,” Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said in a reply to the Rajya Sabha.
He said the government has taken note of media reports about the dispute between the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation and Apple Inc.
FBI had taken Apple to court to force it to break into the encryption-protected iPhone 5c. Backed by technology giants such as Google and Facebook, Apple is opposed to assisting the agency in unlocking the iphone, saying it would have wide-reaching implications on digital security and privacy.
Prasad said that considering the challenges involved, government regularly interacts with all stakeholders to address the issues and implement solutions keeping in view security, service and developmental needs of the country.
He said that research and development activity is also being carried out on a continuous basis to upgrade tools and technologies with the emerging new devices and software, including smartphones.
“As part of this programme, a tool for Mobile forensics has been developed, which handles Smart phones including Apple phones,” Prasad said.
He, however, denied any proposal with the government to introduce backdoor or a key for smart phone encryption.
PTI

Samsung Gear IconX buds and Gear Fit 2 show up on S Health website

Samsung’s Gear IconX wireless earbuds and its refreshed Gear Fit 2 recently surfaced online, thanks to a leak. But now Samsung seems to have confirmed them, when the duo temporarily showed up on Samsung’s S Health website. First reported by DroidLife, both accessories were listed as available, supported accessories for the company’s S Health app, which is available on most of its smartphones.
What was not revealed were the availability dates nor the price tags. Still then there were plenty of high-resolution images, compared to the live images that leaked out earlier. From this we can conclude that Samsung has improved the design of the Gear Fit 2 and has come up with a rather interesting one for its wireless Bluetooth earbuds as well.