Trai to start mobile service quality consultation this month

Regulator's efforts to address Quality of Service norms likely to come in form of a consultation paper

In a bid to improve customer experience in the world's second-largest mobile market, the  Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) is planning to start consultation on the quality benchmark for voice and data services in a fortnight.

According to sources, the regulator's efforts to address the quality of service (QoS) norms is likely to come in the form of a consultation paper that would address both voice and data aspects.

Trai, in its frequent call drop test, found most operators failed to meet service quality benchmark.

At present, the tolerance limit for call drops is two per cent, which means 98 per cent calls made on a network in a quarter should be completed and not get disconnected automatically.

Telecom operators have contested the tests and said they are compliant with benchmark at overall circle level and that Trai's test does not give correct picture of their network performance.

Though the sources did not disclose further details, Trai Chairman R S Sharma had earlier said the regulator will look at monitoring network performance at a tower level, for which a system is in the works.

With regard to data services, Trai had, earlier this month, launched an application to help consumers check real-time internet speeds on their handsets and report the same to the regulator. Trai will leverage the data collected from subscribers to fix new QoS norms for data services.

Trai, while launching the application, had said telecom operators claim they cannot guarantee minimum speed as 'Law of Physics' does not allow them to do so.

In 2014, Trai had issued norms under which it asked the operators to indicate minimum download speed that can be provided to consumers.