Trai's call drop fine not feasible for industry: Telenor

Telenor India, the only Indian telecom company to offer compensation to its users for call drops, has said the monetary proposal by the telecom regulator may not be feasible for the industry.

"We have kept it very simple: For every call drop, a customer gets a call back. There is a consultation process and we have given our views. But, what the government is proposing might not be absolutely possible that way for telecom players," Upanga Dutta, chief marketing officer, Telenor India told Business Standard. The Cellular Operators Association of India and Association of Unified Telecom Service Providers of India have challenged Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) directive of giving Rs 1 to mobile users for every call drop, maximum three per day, in the Delhi high court here. The court has asked Trai to respond on Tuesday.

Telcos have been saying a monetary compensation is not the solution for call drops and it would cause huge financial loss to the industry. The Trai proposal will come into place from January 1. "Mobile technology is not exactly like offering services through copper. It is difficult to give uninterrupted services and even norms allow some call drops. But, customers does not understand this, which is why we offer compensation to our 48 million users to show Telenor is a fair company," he said.

When asked, how much minutes have been credited to its users on call drops, Dutta refused to give any numbers. The firm has a mechanism to ascertain if the call dropped due to a network error or not.

Telenor, which has services in six circles across India, has also taken the lead in offering its subscribers free life insurance along with every recharge. A user is given 100 times the value of recharge as the premium every month.

"Our entire business is around affordability. Our customers come from bottom of the pyramid and are mostly unbanked, which is why we decided to provide value to our users," he said. In a little over a month, 10 million users enrolled for the scheme.

Telenor Group has got payments bank licence in India in partnership with Dilip Shanghvi and IDFC. "This is the first step (towards payments bank). Our sales team is getting ready. We are running programmes on the benefits of insurance. Our retail stores will be one point of contact for distributing financial products," he said.

"We will have a customer base ready once the payments bank comes into place," Dutta said.