Online Portal: For trusted telecom gear makers

The Government of India recently launched an online portal to procure telecom gears from “trusted sources”. The sources to be listed in the portal are to be identified by the highest cybersecurity offices in the country.

About the Portal

• The portal will list all the trusted companies and their gears. This will help the telecom operators in the country to obtain quality and trusted products.
• The access of the portal is currently available only to selected operators.
• The portal is currently in its beta phase. GoI is to launch the portal officially in June 2021 after removing errors if any in the portal.

What is beta phase?

Beta phase is one of the phases in the Software release cycle . It is one of the stages of development and maturity of a software.

What is Software Release Cycle?

A software release cycle is the stage of development and maturity of a software. The states are as follows:

• Pre-Alpha: Activities performed before formal testing of the software
• Alpha: First phase of software testing
• Beta: In this stage, the software features are complete. However, it is likely to contain known and unknown bugs. This phase mainly focuses on reducing the impacts on users.
• Release to Manufacturing: The end user is allowed to verify the integrity and authenticity of the software
• General Availability: completing all the required commercialization activities
• Release to the Web: Distributing the software using the internet. That is, no physical media is used in this type of release

Why is the portal being launched in India?

The portal is being launched to protect Indian companies from becoming victims of cyber threats from neighbouring countries, especially China. The cybersecurity threats from China have increased lately. This is one of the man reasons Huawei that had great impact on the rollout of 4G is not expected to make it to the final list.

Month: Current Affairs - April, 2021