NEW DELHI: All Indian telecommunication networks and Internet Service Provider (ISP) will soon be synchronised with the Indian Standard Time (IST) - a move which will lead to better efficiency, reducing the Voice over Internet Protocol (VOIP) call drop and improving quality of voice and video.

The ‘time standardization’ with the IST ‘time stamp’ will also help security agencies in curbing cybercrime by identifying users (subscribers) through tracing of IP address and correlating various digital transactions.

At present, all Telecom Service Provider (TSP) and Internet Service Provider (ISP) in the country take the reference time from different sources including GPS from the United States ’ Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS), making traceability difficult as it would be a few seconds off from the actual Indian time.

The ‘time stamping’ will be done through setting up Time Synchronisation Centres (TSCs) by the department of telecommunication (DoT) with technical assistance from the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research-National Physical Laboratory (CSIR-NPL) — the keeper of IST. Both the government agencies on Wednesday signed a MoU for this job.

“The primary purpose of synchronizing the telecom network with IST ‘time stamp’ is to enable the security agencies to overcome the difficulty in analysing and correlating the cyber events in this era of greatly increasing network speed with advancement of telecom technology (2G to 5G),” said D K Aswal, the CSIR-NPL director.

The nationwide ‘time stamping’ will be done in two phases with four metro - Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata - being covered in first phase. Remaining 18 Licensed Service Areas (LSAs) will be covered in second phase.

Since the accuracy of time depends on the distance between the TSC (reference source) and the location of the TSPs/ISPs centres, the synchronisation centre will be set up at all the 22 LSAs across the country.

The move came nearly a month after the CSIR-NPL - which has the responsibility to generate, maintain and disseminate Indian Standard Time - had signed a MoU with the IFR Information Dissemination Services Pvt Ltd for providing precise and accurate IST information on a real-time basis. It was meant for synchronizing the clocks of the country with IST.

Officials had then noted that the move would bring greater punctuality in public life and make a significant positive impact for the long-term development and economic benefits for the country which has been moving fast towards e-governance, smart city, internet of things (Iots) and Digital India missions.

