Telcos deploy 65,000 mobile sites to curb call drops: Prasad

Trai had ordered operators to compensate consumers one rupee for every call drop; ruling was challenged in Delhi HC

“During the past six months, around 20,000 sites have been added for 2G (second generation) services across India. Similarly around 45,000 sites have been added for 3G services,” Communications and Information Technology Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said in a written reply in Lok Sabha.

Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) has been conducting service quality audits of networks on a regular basis since July and published results of the most recent survey on February 4.

Trai conducted drive tests during December-January on selected routes of seven cities – Delhi, Mumbai, Pune, Surat, Bhubaneswar and Indore – and shared the findings with telecom operators. According to the Trai report, most telecom operators, including MTNL, failed the drive tests.

Trai came out with regulations mandating telecom operators to compensate consumers Re 1 for every call drop with maximum of three drops a day, but this was challenged by operators in the Delhi High Court. "While certain financial penalties have also been imposed by Trai on defaulting service providers, the case to provide compensation to each subscriber is currently sub-judice. The judgement on the matter is reserved," Prasad said.

In a separate reply, he said the broadband project BharatNet will cover 100,000 gram panchayats by the end of this year.

"The timeline for connecting 1 lakh GPs (gram panchayats) with OFC (optical fibre cable) to provide broadband connectivity under Phase 1 has been revised to December 31, 2016.

Under the NOFN project, the NDA government had planned to connect 50,000 GPs by March 2015, another 100,000 by March 2016 and rest of the one lakh by December 2016.

"Considering the vastness of project execution, the very limited resources deployed by the institutions, time required for tendering, mobilisation of physical resources...the time line for completion of NOFN (National Optical Fibre Network) project could not be met," Prasad said.

Also, mobile phone companies are likely to invest Rs 650 crore by March and production of handsets in value terms is expected to cross Rs 40,000 crore by the end of current fiscal. "As per the Indian Cellular Associations, the production of mobile phones in India during current financial year is expected to cross Rs 40,000 crore compared to the production of Rs 18,900 crore during 2014-15," Prasad said.

Over 30,000 new jobs have already been generated in this industry during the past 7-8 months and additional 8,000-10,000 jobs are expected to be generated by the end of current fiscal.