Telcos to be penalised up to Rs 10 lakh for call drop: Trai

Telecom operators may face a maximum penalty of Rs 10 lakh for call drops which will now be measured at mobile tower level instead of telecom circle, as per the new quality of service rules issued by regulator Trai today.
"We have proposed financial disincentive in the range of Rs 1-5 lakh. It is a graded penalty system depending on the performance of a network," Trai Chairman R S Sharma told reporters here.
Trai Secretary in-charge S K Gupta said if an operator fails to meet call drop benchmark in consecutive quarters, the penalty amount will be increased 1.5 times and in the third consecutive quarter it will doubled.

"However, there is cap of Rs 10 lakh on financial disincentive," Gupta said.
Under the previous quality of service rules, penalty on call drop was Rs 1 lakh per violation and could go up to Rs 2 lakh in case of third subsequent violation.
The new rules will come in effect from October 1.

Sharma told reporters that the previous rules did not address temporary issues in telecom network like non- functioning of mobile towers or geographical issues like network quality in an under-served town.
"The average taken at circle level would hide many things. It did not take care of temporary or spatial problems. Therefore, we have decided that 90 per cent BTSs (base transceiver station) should meet 2 per cent call drop benchmark (in a quarter)," Sharma said.

Similarly, he said, call drop during 97 per cent of time should not be more than 3 per cent on 90 per cent of mobile sites in a telecom circle during peak hours of the day.
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) also fixed benchmark for radio-link time out technology (RLT)- allegedly used by operators for masking call drops.
RLT is used for continuation of a call in case a subscriber is moving or is in base network area for short period.