Call drops: Telecom operators demand national tower policy

Govt says no link between call drops and tower policy

Top telecom operators including Bharti Airtel, Vodafone India and Idea Cellular -- came together today to demand a national policy on towers, which will enable them to resolve certain issues related to rising call drops.

The problem will further deteriorate unless operational difficulties are tackled in installing towers and there should be a uniform tower policy that can be implemented across the country, telcos said in a joint conference in the national capital.

However, the government hit back at the telcos saying they not undertaking serious efforts to address the issue.

"There is no linkage between call drops and tower policy.There was no policy earlier but call drops did not happen. The problem has arisen in the last seven months. They have to find a solution within the existing norms," the department of telecommunications Secretary Rakesh Garg said.

In a meeting with all the operators today, Garg asked them to take all necessary steps to improve services and said that "no serious efforts are being made to bring about a perceptible change".

Also, optimisation is a continuous process and efforts need to be intensified for desirable results. The number of towers which have been affected/closed down is too small to have a justifiable effect in terms of such frequent call drops. "Operators need to invest in infrastructure and optimise the networks..this is your (operators) call, you have to find a solution, we can't give you a solution."

Telcos said about 7,000-10,000 sites are locked or shut down across the country due to various reasons. They demanded a uniform national tower policy that can be implemented across the country and wanted telecom services and infrastructure to be declared essential services. They also asked mobile sites should be allowed to be installed on government buildings.

Garg said steps have already been initiated for setting up of towers in government buildings and government will take efforts to find a solution for harmonization of spectrum.

"We need a uniform national tower policy which can be implemented nationally and not just guidelines," Idea Cellular MD Himanshu Kapania said in the conference.

However, operators refuse to say that mobile users will be compensated for call drops.

Bharti Airtel (India & South Asia) MD & CEO Gopal Vittal said the operators have made massive investments in the sector to provide services and the industry is not going to shy away for making further investments.

The industry also sought additional spectrum and harmonisation of airwaves to improve capacity. Telcos said over 10,000 cell sites have been made non-operational due to some of these reasons across major cities like Delhi, Mumbai, Chandigarh, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Patna, Jaipur, etc.

The telecom industry has seen investments worth around Rs 7.50 lakh crore in the last 20 years. In the spectrum auction held in March this year, all telecom operators committed a total of Rs 1.09 lakh crore.

Various governments and municipal corporations should provide permissions for site installation on government buildings and supportive and affordable Right of Way (RoW) for fibre.