Huawei Denies Hacking into BSNL Base Stations:

China's Huawei has denied media reports that it had hacked into the infrastructure of the state-owned mobile network operator, BSNL, and said it will work with the authorities to address any security concerns.

India's ICT Minister, Killi Kruparani told the parliament that the government is investigating the claims that at least one base station in Andhra Pradesh had been targeted by the Chinese vendor.

"The government has constituted an interministerial team to investigate the matter," Minister of State for Communications and IT Killi Kruparani informed the Lok Sabha.

"Huawei India denies such alleged hacking and continues to work closely with customers and government in India to address any network security issue- that may arise in technical and business operations - with full compliance on network security norms, regulations and laws," Scott Sykes, Vice President, Head of International Media Affairs of Huawei stated.

BSNL May Expand Network Coverage into Naxal Areas by Year-end:

India's state-owned mobile network, BSNL is expected to start expanding its network into terrorist affected areas by the end of this year.

The deployment is dependent on approval from the Telecom Commission, which is expected to be granted later this month.

The rural areas have been poorly served by mobile networks, partly due to economic reasons, but also due to the ongoing terrorist insurgency.

The Naxalites are a Maoist communist group in India, leaders of the Naxalite-Maoist insurgency. The Naxals are considered far-left radical communists, supportive of Maoist political sentiment and ideology. They have a modus-operandi of attacking mobile phone networks and taking down their towers - after claiming that the police use the networks to track their mobile phones.

An official said BSNL has already installed 363 towers and identified another 450 sites for setting up towers.

"BSNL has opened the tender and selected the vendor. The market price for the project has been obtained, which is communicated to the Department of Telecom (DoT). Further decision is to be taken after the approval of the Telecom Commission," an official told PTI.

Indian government asks ministries and PSUs to give preference to BSNL, MTNL:

In a bid to enhance the revenues of BSNL and MTNL, the government has proposed that union ministries, public sector undertakings and autonomous bodies give preference to the services of the state-run telecom operators.

"Proposing preferential treatment to BSNL and MTNL services in Central Government Ministries/Central Government public sector undertakings and autonomous bodies to enhance the revenues earned by BSNL and MTNL," Minister of State for Communications and IT Killi Kruparani said in a written reply to the Rajya Sabha.

She said the government had constituted a group of ministers (GoM) on April 17, 2013 to recommend short term, medium term and long term measures for revival and revitalisation of BSNL and MTNL.

In a separate query, Kruparani said BSNL suffered a loss of Rs. 7,884 crores in 2012-13 whereas MTNL's losses stood at Rs. 5,321 crores in the same period.

"The principal reasons for the rising losses of BSNL and MTNL are due to sharp decline in revenue and increase in expenditure," she said on December 6.

She said the revenues of the state-run telecom PSUs are declining due to substitution of fixed wireline to mobile wireless, stiff competition in mobile wireless sector, payment towards 3G and broadband wireless access spectrum charges.

Decrease in average revenue per user in mobile wireless sector is also hitting the telecom operators' revenues, she added.

"The principal reason for the increase in expenditure is mainly due to large legacy workforce as a result of which employee expenses are currently at around 50 percent of revenues for BSNL and 103 percent for MTNL," she added.