India TEC Public Consultation: SD-WAN ER & OTN Test Guide
India TEC Public Consultation Opens on Revised SD-WAN Essential Requirements and OTN/DWDM Test Guide (TEC 86091:2026)
India's Telecommunication Engineering Centre (TEC), the technical arm of the Department of Telecommunications (DoT), has launched two new public consultations in September 2026 that directly affect manufacturers of enterprise networking and optical transport equipment:
Revision of the Essential Requirements (ER) for Software Defined Wide Area Network (SD-WAN) Equipment, issued by TEC's Information Technology (IT) Division on September 11, 2026.
Draft Test Guide No. TEC 86091:2026 for the Standard on "Multi-service Optical Transport Network (OTN) platform with DWDM bearer transport system," issued by TEC's Transmission (TX) Division on September 21, 2026.
Both documents are open for stakeholder comments until November 10, 2026 and November 20, 2026, respectively. The official notices and draft documents are available on the TEC Consultations page.
Regulatory Background
TEC develops Generic Requirements (GRs), Interface Requirements (IRs), and Essential Requirements (ERs) for telecom products in India. ERs form the technical basis of the Mandatory Testing and Certification of Telecom Equipment (MTCTE) regime, under which covered equipment must be tested by a TEC-designated Conformity Assessment Body (CAB) and certified before it can be sold, imported, or used in India. Test Guides (also known as Test Schedules and Test Procedures, or TSTPs) define how compliance with a given standard is evaluated in the laboratory.
These two consultations continue work already underway in 2026:
TEC consulted on a draft new ER for SD-WAN equipment in May 2025, and on a draft Test Guide TEC 49161:2026 for the SD-WAN Generic Requirements in April 2026. The current consultation is a revision of the SD-WAN ER.
TEC consulted on the underlying Draft Standard TEC 86090:2026 for Multi-Service OTN platforms with DWDM bearer transport between April 24 and June 23, 2026. The new Test Guide TEC 86091:2026 operationalizes that standard for testing.
India TEC Public Consultation 1: Revised SD-WAN Essential Requirements
Scope
The draft revised ER (referenced in the draft as ER No. TEC 300726xx, issued under MTCTE) covers Software Defined Wide Area Network equipment, with functional testing structured around two core product elements: the SD-WAN Router (Edge) and the SD-WAN Controller.
Key Technical Content
Part A – SD-WAN Router functional tests (Test Nos. 95–106) cover:
Path monitoring and failover when the primary WAN (underlay) link fails
Dynamic path selection based on configured SLA thresholds (latency, jitter, packet loss)
Overlay path resiliency (switching to a backup tunnel when the primary overlay tunnel fails)
Load balancing across multiple WAN links
Traffic shaping and QoS prioritization of critical traffic
Traffic encryption and visibility of flow metadata in SD-WAN analytics
Local traffic security (firewall and URL filtering)
Application-aware routing (e.g., SaaS, VoIP, HTTP policies)
Support for virtual and universal CPE (vCPE/uCPE) deployment
Zero-Touch Provisioning (ZTP)
Cloud/SaaS connectivity
Registration and configuration via the SD-WAN Controller
Part B – SD-WAN Controller functional tests (Test Nos. 107–119) cover:
Centralized policy management and automatic policy push to Edge devices
Real-time network analytics and monitoring
Traffic engineering and application-based path steering, including failover behavior
Multi-tenancy and role-based access control (RBAC), including audit logging of unauthorized attempts
ZTP validation from the Controller side
Day-2 orchestration of onboarded Edge devices
Integration with cloud-based security services (SSE)
API-based automation via REST, gRPC, or NETCONF
Controller redundancy and high availability (HA)
Cloud and multi-cloud connectivity
Security policy enforcement and encryption support (IPSec, TLS)
Telemetry collection and automatic detection of performance degradation
The draft also reflects restructuring of certain parameters between product variants. For example, an IPv6 routing parameter (BGP for IPv6 per RFC 2545 or OSPFv3 per RFC 5340) is marked as proposed for relocation to the SD-WAN Router variant.
How to Submit Comments
Comments must be submitted using the Annexure-I template, which includes Table A (comments on technical test parameters, with clause number, parameter name, comments, and justification) and Table B (suggested applicable interfaces).
Item | Detail |
Issuing division | Information Technology (IT) |
Date of issue | September 11, 2026 |
Comment deadline | November 10, 2026 |
Submit to | |
Draft document |
India TEC Public Consultation 2: OTN/DWDM Test Guide TEC 86091:2026
Scope
Draft Test Guide TEC 86091:2026 sets out the test schedule and procedures for evaluating conformance of Multi-Service OTN platforms with DWDM bearer transport systems for metro and core network applications against Standard TEC 86090:2026. It is the third release of this test guide and supersedes TEC/TG/TX/OTN-301/02/DEC-17 (December 2017).
Key Technical Content
Channel capacity: 40/80 wavelengths, with 96 channels as a purchaser-defined option; 40 channels at OTU4/OTUCn equipped on day one
Spectrum: C-band (1529–1565 nm) per ITU-T G.694.1, 193.1 THz reference frequency, 100/75/50 GHz fixed grid or flexible grid (n × 6.25/12.5 GHz)
Line and client interfaces: OTU4/OTUCn coloured line signals without transponders or muxponders; client support for STM-64 (STM-1/4/16 optional), OTU1/2/2e/3/4, ODUflex, GE/10GE/40GE/100GE, and Fibre Channel services
Switching capacity: cross-connect categories from 600 Gbit/s upward, including new categories of 1.6, 2.4, 3.6, 4.8, 12, and 24 Tbit/s
ROADM: colourless, directionless, contentionless, and flexible, supporting up to eight degrees (at least four must be demonstrated during testing), based on WSS using MEMS and/or LCOS
Control plane: ASON/GMPLS per ITU-T G.8080, with OTN ASON switching within 50 ms and restoration within 10 seconds
Performance: SD-FEC support (HD-FEC optional), net coding gain of 8 dB or better, and a 48-hour BER test better than 1×10⁻¹² with FEC enabled; RFC 2544 testing for Ethernet clients
Coherent detection: no Dispersion Compensation Modules (DCM) permitted in amplifiers
Management: EMS supporting at least 500 network elements and an open northbound interface (Q3, TMF-814 CORBA, XML, JSON, or web service); Optical Supervisory Channel at 1510 nm with at least 2 Mbps
Safety and resilience: Automatic Laser Shutdown per ITU-T G.664 with programmable restart (0–10 seconds); hitless card insertion and removal
EMC and environmental: CISPR 32 Class A emissions and IEC 61000-4 series immunity testing; environmental testing per TEC QM-333 Category A, including vibration
Certification detail: the network topology applied for and tested (linear add-drop, closed ring, or mesh) will be stated on the Type Approval Certificate (TAC)
How to Submit Comments
Comments must follow the template attached to the draft (clause number, clause, comments, other remarks).
Item | Detail |
Issuing division | Transmission (TX) |
Date of issue | September 21, 2026 |
Comment deadline | November 20, 2026 |
Submit to | |
Draft document |
What This Means for Manufacturers
SD-WAN vendors should expect MTCTE testing to evaluate not only the Edge router but also the controller and orchestration layer. Capabilities that many vendors treat as software features, such as ZTP, RBAC, API automation, SSE integration, and controller HA, are written as explicit test cases with defined expected results. Vendors whose architecture relies on cloud-hosted controllers should assess how these tests would be demonstrated in a CAB laboratory environment, since the draft allows OEM sandboxes or simulated cloud environments for some tests.
OTN/DWDM vendors face a substantially updated test methodology aligned with current coherent, high-capacity optical technology. The addition of OTUCn, flexible grid, 96-channel options, CDC-F ROADM requirements, and new cross-connect categories up to 24 Tbit/s means equipment tested under the 2017 test guide may need re-evaluation against the new procedures once finalized.
For both product categories, the consultation window is the only formal opportunity to request clarifications, flag test cases that cannot be reproduced in a lab, or propose alternative verification methods before the requirements are finalized.
Certification Impact Summary
Area | SD-WAN ER Revision | OTN/DWDM Test Guide TEC 86091:2026 |
Document type | Essential Requirements (ER) | Test Guide (TSTP) for Standard TEC 86090:2026 |
Certification framework | MTCTE (mandatory certification) | TEC GR-based evaluation, reflected in Type Approval Certificate (TAC) |
Products affected | SD-WAN Routers/Edge devices and SD-WAN Controllers | Multi-service OTN platforms with DWDM transport (OTM, ILA, FOADM, ROADM) |
Nature of change | Revised functional test parameters for router and controller | Third release replacing the 2017 test guide |
Key new or expanded areas | ZTP, RBAC, API automation, SSE, controller HA, telemetry, multi-cloud | OTUCn, flexible grid, 96 channels, CDC-F ROADM, new capacity categories, ASON/GMPLS |
Immediate impact | None until final publication and effective date | None until final publication |
Expected impact | Updated MTCTE test scope for new and possibly renewed certificates | Updated test procedures for OTN/DWDM type approval |
Timeline and Required Actions
Timeline
Date | Milestone |
May 27, 2025 | TEC consults on draft new ER for SD-WAN equipment |
April 24, 2026 | TEC opens consultations on Draft Standard TEC 86090:2026 (OTN/DWDM) and Draft Test Guide TEC 49161:2026 (SD-WAN GR) |
June 23, 2026 | Comment deadline for Draft Standard TEC 86090:2026 |
September 11, 2026 | Consultation opens on revised SD-WAN ER |
September 21, 2026 | Consultation opens on Draft Test Guide TEC 86091:2026 |
November 10, 2026 | Comment deadline: SD-WAN ER |
November 20, 2026 | Comment deadline: OTN/DWDM Test Guide |
To be announced | Final publication and effective dates |
Required Actions
Confirm product scope. Map your SD-WAN and optical transport portfolio against the scope of each draft, including virtual and cloud-hosted SD-WAN controller deployments.
Perform a gap assessment. Review each test case against current product capabilities, focusing on newly specified functions and pass/fail criteria.
Prepare and submit comments on time. Use the official templates and submit to the listed email addresses by November 10 (SD-WAN) and November 20, 2026 (OTN/DWDM), with technical justification for each comment.
Engage your testing partners early. Discuss lab capability with a TEC-designated CAB, especially for controller, cloud-connectivity, and high-capacity optical test setups.
Review existing certificates. Assess whether current MTCTE certificates or TACs will need updating once the final documents take effect.
Monitor TEC publications. Track the TEC Consultations and Standards pages for the final versions and any transition provisions.
Conclusion
This India TEC public consultation cycle signals a clear direction: India's test requirements are moving closer to how modern software-defined and coherent optical networks actually operate. Manufacturers of SD-WAN and OTN/DWDM equipment should treat the November 2026 deadlines as an opportunity to shape practical, testable requirements and to begin preparing their products and documentation for the next phase of Indian certification.
CERTA Global Consulting monitors TEC and DoT developments and supports manufacturers with MTCTE certification, gap assessments, and consultation submissions. Contact our team to discuss how these updates affect your product roadmap.
