Aircel, Voda, Idea non-compliant with billing standards: Trai

When it comes to the number of disputes of phone billing, Aircel, Vodafone and Idea Cellular fared the worst in several service areas during the quarter ended December 2012, according to a report by regulator Trai.

According to Telecom Regulatory Authority of India's (TRAI) Performance indicator Report released today, Aircel customers in 10 out of 22 telecom service areas disputed bills, Vodafone consumers in four and Idea subscribers in three service areas contended their bills.

BSNL and MTS customers in one circle each dipsuted the bills.

As per Trai's quality of service benchmark, not more than 0.1% of the total bills raised by a company in a service area should be disputed.

The percentage of billing disputes against five telecom operators (Aircel, Vodafone, Idea, BSNL and MTS) ranges between 0.11% and 2.42%. Aircel's score in Maharashtra is the worst at 2.42%.

In Aircel's case, 0.11% to 0.25% of its post-paid bills in Gujarat, Jammu and Kashmir, Kolkata, Karnataka, Punjab and Rajasthan were disputed.

Pre-paid customers of Aircel disputed the charges dedeucted in Jammu and Kashmir, Mumbai, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa. Around 0.11 to 2.42% of pre-paid bills of Aircel were dsiputed in these circles.

Idea Cellular was found non-compliant with billing quality of service benchmark in Gujarat, Haryana and Karnataka for post-paid services.

Aircel and Idea are the two companies which could not resolve there billing disputes within four weeks, the time set under regulation as quality benchmark, as per the report.

Complaints against Vodafone's post-paid services did not comply with benchmark set by Trai in Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab and Uttar Pradesh (East). Around 0.24% of pre-paid bills raised by the company were disputed in Bihar circle.

 Pre-paid and post-paid customers of Sistema Shyam Teleservices, which runs services under brand name of MTS, disputed 0.15% of bills raised in Delhi circle.

TRAI report also noticed that faulty billings by telecom operators for post-paid services increased to 5.68% during the reported quarter from 4.37% in previous quarter.

The regulator has found that many customers of Aircel, BSNL, Idea Cellular, Reliance Communications, Idea Cellular, Tata Teleservices, Uninor and Vodafone in some of the telecom circles had to wait for more than a minute to get their calls answered.

No immediate comments were received by companies on the matter.