60% people facing frequent call drops: DoT survey

Department claimed that overall call drops came down by 7% in 3 months between Dec to March

Nearly 60 per cent people are still facing frequent call drops, with most of them experiencing problem indoors, found a survey by the Department of Telecom (DoT).

Out of 3.56 lakh subscribers surveyed across telecom service providers, 2.15 lakh (about 60 per cent) complained about frequent call drops.

The DoT, however, made 26.97 lakh calls to subscribers of various telecom operators in the country, out of which only 3.56 lakh subscribers (about 13 per cent) participated in the survey.

The department also claimed that overall call drops have come down by seven per cent in three months between December 2016 to March 2017.

"Remaining 87 per cent subscribers, who did not participate, were either not willing or did not have problem of frequent call drops...," the DoT said in a statement.

From the feedback, the DoT observed that the complaint is "mostly indoors".

The feedback is shared with the telecom service providers (TSPs) to take corrective action in a time-bound manner and submit the action taken report (ATR) to DoT Task Force every fortnight.

"TSPs contact each subscriber, who has reported frequent call drops, through telephonic calls and SMS in English and local languages to collect further details required for resolution of the complaint," the statement said.

On cumulative basis, since launch of Interactive Voice Response System (IVRS), telecom operators have resolved 13,631 cases related to the call drop issue and also resolved another 7,975 which were reported as frequent call drops but were found to be having other issues related to data, roaming, billing, MNP, mobile device etc.

Out of these, 1,406 cases were resolved through optimisation, rectifying hardware or power problems, through field visits etc during the fortnight March 15-31, 2017, the statement said.

"The call drops reported by subscribers have dropped from 64 per cent in December 2016 to 57 per cent at the end of March 2017, a drop of nearly 7 per cent in 3 months," the statement said.

The DoT said the government has facilitated telecom operators to identify black spots and plan new sites or infrastructure to improve their services.

Telecom operators have planned 987 new sites and boosters out of which 109 have been already installed and commissioned, the statement said.