Hurt and dismayed by Trai's remarks: Telcos

Telecom operators today said they are dismayed by the "misplaced, baseless and misleading" remarks made against them by Trai in the Supreme Court and asked the authority to refrain from use of such unsubstantiated language at any forum.
Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi, appearing for Trai before the Supreme Court yesterday said a "cartel" of 4-5 telecom firms having a billion subscribers are making Rs 250 crore a day but not making investments on their network to improve services to check call drops.
"They are making around Rs 1 lakh crore a year from calls and the impact of penalty will be Rs 270-280 crore and not thousands of crore as claimed by them," he said.

Telecom players' body COAI in a statement said, "The industry is deeply hurt by such strong remarks especially when it is a well-known and acknowledged fact that huge investments have been made by the operators which has yielded in connecting and empowering a billion people."
"COAI and several Indian telecom service providers are surprised and are deeply dismayed by the misplaced, baseless and rather misleading remarks made against them...In respect of the its business practices and ethics insinuating that the industry has indulged in cartelization."
COAI said the industry has leveraged its financial ability and taken on debt to the tune of Rs 3.8 lakh crore, to further invest a cumulative figure of over Rs 8 lakh crore, not only to meet its service obligations but in partnering the Government at every step to shoulder the responsibility of providing highest standards of service quality.

COAI said that given the need to have quality mobile

coverage and network presence inside residential and commercial complexes, sharing of infrastructure should be encouraged among telecom operators.
In the same vein, it said such sharing should be left to mutual agreements among the telecom operators as various technical complexities are involved in the installation of in-building infrastructure.
According to COAI, operators have taken steps by way of customer outreach to identify problem areas, seeking suggestions on setting up mobile cell-sites, optimised hand-offs between 2G,3G & 4G sites and installation of 'in-building solutions' and small cells for improving coverage wherever permission is possible.