Telecom firms ask government not to stop 3G phone services

"We are working with the government and have asked them not to stop the roll-out of 3G," said Rajan S. Mathews, director general of the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI).

According to Mathews, he expects new technology within three-four months which would allow the government legal wiretaps to address security concerns.

"We will work with the government and in the next three-four months we will come up with technology that allows legal interception in these kind of activities," Mathews said.

According to reports, some companies were asked to provide a compliance report on security aspects of 3G services to the Department of Telecommunications (DoT).

Recently Reliance Communications and Tata Teleservices had launched their 3G services, while Bharti Airtel said it will introduce its service by the year-end.

3G services offer features such as video-calling, mobile TV, video streaming and applications access at super fast internet connections on a wide variety of both mobile phone and personal computing devices.