IBM Looking To Work With Indian Telcos To Offer Blockchain Solutions

By Kapil Gauhar

IBM may work with Indian telecom companies to offer blockchain solutions which can be used in MNP and DNC registries.

The vice-president of IBM Research, Sriram Raghavan said,

“We have completed proof of concepts and pilots with all the major telecom providers and with Trai in this space. We anticipate that going into the New Year, we’ll start to see blockchain solutions getting rolled out.”

Though, he did not specify the names of telecom companies that anticipated in testing.

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) and major telecom providers have been working with tech firms like IBM to know how blockchain could address the issues of coordination among multiple parties concerning to Do Not Call registries and Mobile Number Portability. Everything from customer consent for the DNC service is recorded on Blockchain, said Raghavan.

Raghavan stated,

“This gives Trai, as a regulator, more visibility and spot malfeasance quickly. Mobile number portability, too, is a multi-party process involving a minimum of two telecom providers where blockchain can play a role.”

TRAI had completed its review on Distributed Ledger Technology in February 2018. After estimating what was possible with Distributed Ledger Technology, the financial regulator came out with a bunch of regulations in May 2018. Another step in this process is for the telecom service providers to select IT vendors and set up the system by the TRAI guidelines. The tech giant with TRAI, along with major telecom companies, has assured to roll out DLT-based systems in the next couple of months.

In May 2018, TRAI reportedly announced its plans to fight malfeasance in the telecom industry by using Blockchain Technology. India’s Telecom Regulator also revealed that the solution would come up with better and efficient tracking tools to help spot spammers using unregistered 10-digit phone numbers.

Unlike the public blockchain networks such as Bitcoin, IBM and other firms use private blockchain networks aimed at helping the sharing of sensitive business data among the trusted parties. One way to think about that in Raghavan’s words –

“A private network involves a set of people, and the public network is out there where anybody can join. You can also have public permissioned networks. Here, the network is done in public, but you just can’t download a code to join it. You have to be permissioned. Sometimes these two dimensions get confused.”

This was not the first initiative by IBM to work with Indian telcos to provide blockchain solution. In the mid-2018, IBM was reported for its contribution to the Indian state Tamil Nadu by launching an educational initiative on distributed ledger technology focused on Blockchain Architecture, its design and uses.