The Department of Telecom (DoT) asked state-owned telecom giants BSNL and MTNL to discontinue their third generation (3G) services till the time the security agencies set up apt monitoring system in order to track traffic on their network.

The decision comes in spite of BSNL and MTNL clarifying to the administration that interception of 3G traffic is possible, during a meeting with the DoT on March 4.

The Intelligence Bureau informed the DoT that BSNL has not provided for monitoring video calls.

A DoT note to the two PSUs said, “The IB was of the view that till such facility is not made available by the service providers, the various services should not be offered to the subscribers. Therefore, MTNL and BSNL may not provide such services to subscribers till monitoring is not available with IB.”

When met, senior MTNL functionaries stated that they would respond to the DoT’s letter but there was no move to stop 3G services at the moment.

An MTNL representative stated that it’s the job of the security agencies to establish well-suited equipment at their premises.

The representative also said that they are only accountable for the equipment to be provided at their premises.