Time ripe for odd-even in mobile calls

Will operators show some imagination to mitigate the relentless call-drop problem?

Is it time for the odd-even rule for phone calls, quite like the car exercise on Delhi roads some time ago, so that we can talk and hear each other without wanting to throw the handset in frustration and anger? Choked roads and choked telecom networks must be the two biggest nightmares across India’s big cities now with no respite in sight. While one is constantly keeping us on hold on way to work, meetings, shopping, movies, hospitals, home and more, the other is stopping us from speaking on the mobile phone — oh that magical device to connect with anyone anytime including on the Indian skies soon. Whether on the roads or inside a building, calls are not just dropping every second, they are increasingly not getting through at all.

 
Even as both automobile companies and mobile service providers are busy adding numbers, their “response’’ to the serious congestion is not exactly similar. Here’s how.
 
Automakers are increasingly making noise about being responsible businesses and are eager to be seen as politically correct on the electrification mission. Even more important, many of them are toning down their bullishness on the number of vehicles they are adding to Indian roads every month. Along with electric vehicles, shared mobility is the new mantra. True or false.
 

A day before the start of Auto Expo 2018 — that would go on to see hundreds of debut and launches — Tata Motors chief executive and managing director Guenter Butschek got stuck in a Delhi traffic jam and turned up late for a media interaction. As Butschek outlined the company’s growth strategy and India’s potential rise in the global pecking order in terms of automobile numbers, he was quick to add a disclaimer—that he shouldn’t be talking volume growth after the traffic congestion he had just faced. Another auto major, M&M, has gone ahead with a daring statement just when the biggest motor show in the country was taking off. Anand Mahindra, chairman of M&M, said in an interview that shared mobility must be encouraged because “it is a matter of life and death’’ and that “cities will be living hell if car sales rise rapidly’’. Leap of faith has turned out to be the most prized expression in the auto industry as players claim they are ready to become mobility players rather than car makers.

 
Telecom companies are different from the auto majors and it is rare to find those leap of faith statements among the telcos. No chairman or chief executive of a telecom service provider in India has been heard saying millions of subscriber addition every month is hurting the system. They talk of mega investments to arrest call drops only when asked by the government or the regulator. Customer complaints on such issues are of no consequence mostly.
 
But yes, in a departure of sorts, Sunil Mittal and Mukesh Ambani came on to the same platform last year and even called each other "friend’’ in the midst of bitter rivalry, surprising industry watchers. They spoke of sharing the infrastructure to cater to millions of subscribers as well. “We have to root out inefficiencies across the digital ecosystem. And we must break silos and forge partnerships. No single corporate, nor the government, can do it alone,’’ Ambani had said. Mittal responded with similar warmth. “As Mukesh pointed out, none of us can do it alone. We will all have to come together for the benefits of customers. We have to collaborate ourselves, create an ecosystem, use common towers, hopefully common fibres...’’

 
While one is waiting to hear more on partnerships, the war over providing points of interconnect, so-called predatory pricing, financial stress and job losses in the telecom sector have far-outweighed the need to focus on quality or even basic telecom service for that matter.
 
To help us connect whether we are on the move or inside a building, the government has decided to call regular meetings with heads of telcos for call drop updates. Last heard, Department of Telecom  secretary Aruna Sundararajan had said top telecom companies such as Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio had committed to invest over Rs 74,000 crore in upgrading infrastructure to address the call drop problem. As for telcos, they believe call drops have stabilised, but think voice calls have started fading more often. So, possibly they are now busy looking for solutions to check call fading and not call drops.

 
Meanwhile, the telecom regulator has come out with a diktat on penalties of up to Rs 1 million for call drops in consecutive quarters. Will that help India avert a situation of choosing a day of the week to call from an odd phone number and another to dial from an even number?