'Telecom operators committed to work with government on call drops'

Indian telecom operators said they are committed to work with the government on tackling the problem of call drops and are keen to undertake the joint exercise with the Telecom Enforcement, Resource and Monitoring (TERM) cells to address the issue.

"At the outset, we would like to submit that all our member operators are committed to work the DoT (Department of Telecom) and are keen to undertake the joint exercise with the TERM cell to address the issue of the call drops," said the Cellular Operators' Association of India and the Association of Unified Telecom Service Providers of India in a joint letter to the DoT. A copy of the letter dated July 30 which is available with IANS.

The DoT wrote a letter to the service providers on July 17 asking them to submit report on call drop issue by July 31.

It is learnt from sources that two-three operators have submitted their reports to the DoT on Friday and the rest will be submitting it by Monday.

The DoT's July 17 letter said: "The issue of call drops in mobile networks has been reviewed in the department. It was felt that there is an urgent need to address the menace of call drops.

"Therefore, it is necessary that service providers undertake a special drive for Radio Frequency Optimization, analyse the reasons of the call drops and take appropriate steps viz. installation of more sites, adopting in-building solutions, augmenting existing RF resources etc. as the case may be."

In their reply, the operators said: "In this regard, we request DoT to kindly issue a standardised audit procedure highlighting common streamlined process and requirements which are relevant for this purpose."