DoT has issued instructions liberalising import norms for prototype, sample products and test and measurement equipment in licence-exempt bands without the need of ‘equipment type approval (ETA)’ in a bid to help promote `Make in India’.  The department also enabled ETA through self-certification for import of commercial and finished products.

Telecom Engineering Centre (TEC) has been asked to finalize standards for IoT/M2M as the country aspires to roll out 5G services at par with the rest of the world. The roadmap for M2M communications was released in May 2015 but the centre is yet to finalize generic requirement for the segment. So far, TEC has released Twelve Technical Reports (TRs) in the last three years.

The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has once again pushed back the deadline to begin domestic testing and certification of telecom equipment and mobile phones to August 1, 2019. According to a previous order in September 2018, April 1, 2019, was fixed as the deadline for certification of mobile base stations, routers, internet of things devices and other network gears.