DoT defers meeting with telecom service providers to discuss call drops

The Department of Telecom (DoT) has deferred a meeting scheduled for on Wednesday with mobile service providers to discuss the issue of call drops following a request from some companies, sources said.

"The meeting has been deferred as CEOs of a couple of telecom service providers were not available today. Hence, they have requested for some other date," an official source told PTI.

The DoT had also deferred a meeting with the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) to discuss the issue of call drops.

Telecom Secretary Aruna Sundararajan had said on Monday that the government is concerned with the call drop situation and wants to discuss the same with the chief executive officers of the companies.

The DoT had planned to meet Trai to discuss new regulations on mobile service quality that it implemented from October 1.

As per Trai's performance indicator report for July- September, Aircel's 2G network had a call drop rate of as high as 9.89 per cent, breaching the benchmark of 2 per cent, while during busy hours it was 19.73 per cent against the benchmark of 3 per cent.