Cable Landing Station: Decoding 10 Major monitoring requirements

The government of India has issued guidelines for an ISP of any category to setup a Submarine cable landing station for international gateway for the internet. What is a landing station? In simple terms, it’s the starting point to which the submarine cable is connected in India.

This article decodes 10 major monitoring requirements as mentioned in the cable landing stations guidelines.

Why it’s important for the cable landing station to monitor the traffic?

The Department of Telecommunication has mandated that all cable landing stations monitor the traffic that flows out and comes in to India for the purpose security. This blog discusses the monitoring requirements that are important for maintaining the integrity of national security. Other Related Content: Prepaid Wallet License

Monitoring requirements of a Cable landing station

Following is the list of monitoring requirements that a cable landing station has to comply to throughout the lifecycle of its operation.

Monitoring only internet data traffic

To ensure protection of the user’s privacy, the Department of Telecommunication has specified that the landing station will only monitor user’s internet data, and not the voice data.

Monitoring from the security angle:

The cable landing station must capture, store and retrieve data from all the classes of internet traffic whether it’s audio, video or internet.

The station must implement technical format which involves taking care of all the attributes like destination, recipient, sender, key words.

Must install a good intrusion detection system:

Being a termination point for submarine cable, a landing station is susceptible to intrusive attacks. Thus, it must be ensured that a good intrusion detection is in place to prevent the station from becoming a launch pad for cyber attacks in India.

Agencies should also monitor the landing station:

The Department of Telecommunication has authorized certain security-centric agencies to monitor the traffic that goes through the landing stations. These agencies must monitor all types of traffic that passes through those stations including fax, speech, video, multimedia of both interactive and non-interactive modes. Read More: RNI Registration

it should be easy to add and remove individual subscribers:

The landing station must have a system in which one can use keywords, expressions or addresses to initiate or terminate the subscribers.

Scanning of the entire traffic should be keyword based:

The landing station must have a system in which specific key words, expressions per the security agencies can be used to scan the entire traffic. Furthermore, the station must store all the monitored information in a collectively in separate directories.

Further, it’s important to store the decoded-information in a way that you can access the fax, data, audio/video information they represent.

Space for all the agencies:

The landing station to provide a dedicated-memory, space or directory in the monitoring center computer to the security agencies.

The data should be accessible by the agencies

The security agencies should access the monitoring information of the monitoring center computer via PSTN, ISDN, cable wires or optical link.

Remote access facility should have password protection

The remote accessing and login facility of the landing station provided to the security agencies must password protection.

Multiple security agencies should be able to monitor the traffic:

Landing station must install a system that allows multiple security agencies to simultaneously monitor the traffic.

Conclusion

Setting up a landing station for international gateway is a huge responsibility. Make sure that you possess the technical expertise to comply with all the aforementioned monitoring conditions. And when you do, contact Registrationwala for any assistance to set up a cable landing station.