Telecom operators fail to meet TRAI benchmarks in the state

Telecom service providers in the Orissa circle, both in the mobile and landline segment, have failed to comply with the benchmarks set by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India Limited (TRAI) on 'Quality of Service' in areas like connection with good voice quality, point of interconnect (POI) congestion, metering and billing credibility and accessibility to call centres.

As far as connection with good voice quality is concerned, Aircel which operates as Dishnet Wireless in the Orissa circle had a rating of 94.53 per cent, tad short of the TRAI stipulated benchmark of more than 95 per cent.

The same operator's POI congestion in the April-June quarter of 2010-11 stood at 1.67 per cent compared to the TRAI benchmark of 0.5 per cent.

In terms of billing and metering credibility, Uninor failed to meet the TRAI benchmark in the said period. Uninor's rating stood at 1.3 per cent compared to the TRAI stipulated figure of 0.1 per cent.

Similarly in case of accessibility to call centres and customer care service, which should be over 95 per cent, Reliance Telecom's rating was 74 per cent.

In terms of percentage of calls answered by the operators within 60 seconds, four operators have failed to conform to the benchmark set by TRAI- Reliance Telecom, Tata Teleservices Ltd's GSM operations, Idea Cellular and Aircel.

As per the benchmark set by the telecom regulator, more than 90 per cent of the calls need to be answered by the operators within 60 seconds. However, for Reliance Telecom, the figure stood at 84 per cent, 82.4 per cent for Idea Cellular, 69.7 per cent for Tata Teleservices Ltd and a disappointingly low of only 30.4 per cent for Aircel.

The telecom watchdog also stipulates that 100 per cent of the security deposit of the subscribers need to be refunded within 6 days of termination of service. However, for Tata Teleservices' CDMA operations, the figure stood at 95 per cent.

The data is as per the report on Quality of Service Performance of Wireless and Wireline Operators prepared by TRAI.

Similarly among the wireline service providers, Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd and Tata Teleservices have been the defaulters in meeting TRAI stipulated benchmarks.

In case of Tata Teleservices, the accessibility to call centres and customer care was only 74.16 per cent compared to the TRAI benchmark of at least 95 per cent.

According to TRAI guidelines, any fault in connectivity of a subscriber should be repaired to the extent of 100 per cent within three days whereas it was 98.48 per cent for BSNL.