Trai hauls up operators for poor service

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) today said it summoned eight telecom operators for poor quality of service across the country.

"We have called four operators yesterday and will call another four tomorrow individually for their quality of service," Trai member AK Sawhney said today. HFCL, MTNL, Idea, Hutch, Airtel and Aircel were among these operators, he said.

"We have told them to meet the quality of service regulation 2005 parameters by next quarter ending September or otherwise face actions like penalty and even recommendation for cancellation of licences," Sawhney said.

Trai in its own internal audit found that the telecom operators had failed to meet quality of service regulations. There are 159 licences and 23 circles.

In the QoS regulation, Trai pointed several service quality benchmarks. In case of points of interconnection congestion, it allows 0.5 per cent or one in 200 calls. Congestion in points of interconnection is a major reason for call drop. However, congestion level had rose from 389 in December 2006 to 499 in March.

Trai has found discrepancies in the quarterly report filed by telecom operators and internal report of Trai. On this, Sawhney said they were given 15 days to explain.