Call all operators for meeting on call drops: COAI to Parliamentary panel

The problem of call drops has been prevalent for quite a while, with DoT asking telecom operators to take measures to control the situation

GSM industry body COAI has urged the Standing Committee on IT to hear out all its members including Airtel, Vodafone and Idea Cellular as well as those of AUSPI in its meeting on Thursday regarding quality of service and call drops.

AUSPI stands for Association of Unified Telecom Service Providers of India and its members include Reliance Communications and Tata Teleservices.

The committee, headed by BJP MP Anurag Singh Thakur, had called COAI and Reliance Jio to appear before it regarding the issue of quality of service and call drops. After the meeting on November 10, there will be another meeting with officials of Department of Telecommunications (DoT) and Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai).

In a letter to Thakur, COAI said: “In order to assist the committee in this important exercise, the other members of COAI namely, Airtel, Idea, Vodafone, Aircel and Telenor and the members of AUSPI be also called to depose before the committee and furnish all relevant information and data for the consideration of the committee.”

COAI said as many of the issues pertaining to the subject are best explained by individual member companies, who are also licensees, as these issues lie within the ambit of bilateral commercial agreements between members.

“Additionally, networks and technologies vary among members and they are best suited to explain some of the nuances involved,” it said.

“Hence, we would respectfully request that with the objective of obtaining a full, complete and fair understanding of the matter under discussion, all member companies of COAI and AUSPI be called to present before the Standing Committee on Information Technology," it added.

The problem of call drops has been prevalent for quite a while with DoT asking the operators to take measures to control the situation. The telecom operators in June this year had submitted a 100-day plan to tackle the problem wherein they committed to set up 60,000 mobile towers. In a review meeting last week, the telcos said they have set up over 61,000 mobile towers and the government also expressed satisfaction over the work done by operators.

However, Mukesh Ambani-owned Reliance Jio, had blamed lack of interconnect points provided by incumbent operators for congestion in its network which lead to mass scale call failures.  

Jio, which is also a member of COAI, has also blamed COAI for airing the views of incumbent operators only regarding interconnect points.