Telecoms firms are increasingly looking to outsource their IT departments so that they do not have to maintain in-house IT teams, it has been suggested.

Industry commentators feel that they have come to this decision because IT is not their core business, according to livemint.com.

New telephony groups including Datacom Solutions are currently in talks with IBM about outsourcing their technology requirements, as these young businesses are looking to streamline their operations to allow them to provide their communications networks more efficiently, reports the news provider.

Vivek Gupta, director for communications sector at IBM India, said: "These companies are not looking at maintaining large in-house IT teams because it is not their core business. We have had an initial round of discussions with all of them."

The news follows reports last week by ZD Net that Gartner has predicted increasingly technologically literate clients will shape the future of the IT outsourcing industry.