Govt, telcos in blame game over call drops

Pulling up telecom operators for frequent call drops, government today said they are not making serious efforts to resolve the menace even as the companies warned of worsening of services unless a nation-wide policy is put in place for easy erection of mobile towers.
With the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) mulling action against mobile operators for call drops, all telcos held a joint press conference here and sought a uniform tower policy for the whole country.
The operators, including Bharti Airtel, Vodafone and Idea Cellular, also blamed several challenges like sealing orders by local bodies, power supply issues and difficulties in getting clearances for installing sites, for call drops.

However, Telecom Secretary Rakesh Garg rejected the telecom operators' claims over call drops.
"There is no linkage between call drops and tower policy. There was no policy earlier but call drops did not happen. The problem has arisen in the last seven months. They have to find a solution within the existing norms," Garg said after meeting telecom operators on call drop issue today.
He added operators need to invest in infrastructure and optimise their networks.

Sources said during the meeting, the secretary told operators that no serious efforts were being made to bring about a perceptible change.
"This is your call, you have to find a solution, we can't give you a solution," the secretary said.

He further said India has a federal structure and you have to give powers to local bodies. "Whatever the operators are demanding cannot be done by the government".
"We need a uniform national tower policy which can be implemented nationally and not just guidelines," Idea Cellular MD Himanshu Kapania said.
The operators said that about 7,000-10,000 sites are locked or shut down across major cities like Delhi, Mumbai, Chandigarh, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Patna and Jaipur due to various reasons, including sealing orders by local bodies without prior notice.
On likelihood of call drops worsening further going forward, Vodafone India MD & CEO Sunil Sood said, "If you don't get a tower policy, yes, it will.