Nokia Siemens Networks has responded to recent speculation about sales it made of network monitoring kit to the Iranian government, confirming that it provided Lawful Intercept capability solely for the monitoring of local voice calls in Iran. However, the company refuted reports that it had provided any deep packet inspection, web censorship or Internet filtering capability to the country.
In most countries around the world, including all EU member states and the U.S., telecommunications networks are legally required to have the capability for Lawful Intercept and this is also the case in Iran. Lawful Intercept is specified in standards defined by ETSI and the 3GPP.
To fulfill this Lawful Intercept requirement as part of an expansion to provide further mobile connectivity to Iran in the second half of 2008, Nokia Siemens Networks provided TCI, the Iranian national operator, with the capability to conduct voice monitoring of local calls on its fixed and mobile network.
The restricted functionality monitoring center provided by Nokia Siemens Networks in Iran cannot provide data monitoring, internet monitoring, deep packet inspection, international call monitoring or speech recognition. Therefore, contrary to speculation in the media, the technology supplied by Nokia Siemens Networks cannot be used for the monitoring or censorship of internet traffic.
The Intelligence Solutions division of the company was itself sold earlier this year to Perusa Partners Fund, a private investment firm. Nokia Siemens Networks says that it made the decision to exit this business as it primarily addresses customer segments which differ from telecom service providers and is therefore not part of its core business.
Posted to the site on 23rd June 2009
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