In a letter sent to these companies, the Telecom Department (DoT) said the shortcomings in interception facilities of video calling on 3G services for the agencies need to be addressed before their launch.
The three companies were to start the video call facilities by the end of this year.
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According to an exhaustive note sent by the union home ministry to the DoT, a demonstration was organised by Reliance, Tata Teleservices and Bharti during which the law enforcement agencies pointed out that online delivery of video call intercepts “in real time” could not be carried out by any of the telecom operators.
The contents of such calls were displayed only after five minutes of the completion of these calls as against the requirement of the agencies which want such details and interceptions on real-time basis, official sources said.
The DoT asked these operators to put on hold their services being offered under 3G until they address the concerns raised by the security agencies.
During the demonstration carried out by these telecom service providers, it came to light that long duration video calls, both incoming and outgoing, could not be intercepted, official sources said.
“Outgoing and incoming video calls after eight minutes could not be intercepted and displayed,” they said.
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