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Spillover of mobile signals from Pak, B’desh worrisome: India New Delhi, August 31 The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has asked the External Affairs Ministry to discuss with Islamabad and Dhaka the issue of the availability of mobile signals from across the border even though telecom operators are not allowed to provide cellular service within 500 metres of the international border, which is called the no-service zone. “The mobile signals of Pakistani service provider such as Ufone, Mobilink, Zim Telenor, Oasis, Warid are available inside Indian territory in Barmer (Jaisindhar, Munabao, Rohiri, Khalifon Ki Baori, PS-Gadra Road etc),” Minister of State for Communications and IT Milind Deora has said in a written reply to the Lok Sabha. According to inputs available with the government, mobile towers have been set up by Ufone, Telenor, Yuang approximately 10 km from the international border in Rajasthan. The gap between the towers is approximately 20 to 25 km and they function with solar-operated batteries. On the Bangladesh side of the border, the presence of signals from Bangladeshi mobile service company Axiata has been detected in some districts of West Bengal .Similarly, Pakistan mobile service providers' signals are present in some of the border towns of Jammu and Kashmir, the minister added. It is not permitted to provide Mobile Base Trans-Receiver Station (BTS) in buffer zone of 10 km width along the LoC, LAC and international border. The availability of signals has also resulted in the illicit use of SIM cards of the mobile phone service providers from across the border in the Indian territory, which the government feels could be a major security threat.The spillover of mobile signals from foreign countries allows the use of mobile communication of corresponding countries from within the territory of India without having to pass through the Indian telecom network infrastructure. What is becoming further troublesome for the DoT is that it cannot stop the availability of signals from across the borders. Radio signals’ propagation was a natural phenomenon and could only be minimised but not completely eliminated. The DoT had mulled the option of blocking mobile signals using jammers, but these were effective only for about 3-4 km. The blocking of mobile signals of neighbouring countries by installing jammers near the international border would require installation of a large number of such jammers along the border. “It is practically impossible to deploy so many jammers to block the mobile signals of the neighbouring countries,” the minister said. The security agencies in the border areas and the DoT are working in coordination to identify and reduce the misuse of mobile signals from across the border.Besides, the DoT has also submitted a concept paper to the SAARC secretariat on the issue. A threat to security
The spillover signals have resulted in illicit use of SIM cards of service providers from across the border into the Indian territory. The DoT had mulled the option of blocking mobile
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