The department claimed in a formal press communique that it had finalised the norms for the same and ISPs keen to set up gateways of their own could apply on a prescribed format, along with a processing fee of Rs 20,000.Soon after the ISP policy was announced by the government in November last year, several ISPs including Satyam Infoway, Bharti BT, Global Electronic Commerce Services, MTNL and ITIL, had written letters to DoT expressing interest in setting up their own gateways.

The process got delayed as the high-powered committee on internet security took time to give its go-ahead for the same. Following that, DoT had been mulling over the guidelines before inviting formal applications from the private sector. So far, VSNL continues to be the only provider of gateways.ISPs contacted by TheFinancial Express, however, expressed apprehension about lack of clarity on whether they will be permitted to set up their own earth stations and also whether they will be free to approach foreign satellite companies directly for leasing of transponders.

"Failing this, allowing us to set up our own gateways will have no meaning. Ultimately, we may end up with same handicaps as earlier. What is the point of having our own gateway and still depend on Videsh Sanchar Nigam or some other government agency for earth stations, or seeing the termination of under-sea optical fibre cables at their nodes. It will defeat the whole purpose," said a Delhi-based ISP.

The telecom policy does not permit hiring of transponders from foreign satellites by the service players. DoT's norms announced on Tuesday are not clear on how DoT would fulfil the high demand for bandwidth and if they will need to approach the department of space to lease the transponders.

As per the guidelines announced, no permission will berequired for use of encryption up to 40 bit key length. For stronger encryption, the decryption key split into two parts (the public key and the private key) will have to be deposited with the Telecom Authority.