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The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) has asked mobile operators to upgrade their networks to pay compensation for call drops to mobile users from January 1 next year. The regulator has, however, softened its stance and showed willingness to look into the issues raised by telecom companies.
“It’s a valid regulation. Operators must take steps to prepare themselves to implement this,” Trai Chairman R S Sharma said after meeting chief executives of telecom operators on Thursday. It has also been decided that officials from Trai and telecom companies will meet every two weeks to resolve issues regarding call drops.
Trai has asked operators to suggest other ways of measuring call drop data, as operators feel the current method doesn’t present a real picture. A senior official from a telecom company said, Trai measured the data through sample surveys, which covered only a specific area in a licensed circle. One has to assess the whole service area to arrive at the real situation. “Even the two per cent benchmark by Trai is the average number across a circle.”
Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) Director General Rajan Mathews said Trai might later consider changing the method of conducting drive tests for call drops. “Also, they will get back to us within two weeks on our letter for roll-back of the compensation policy.”
A senior executive from a telecom firm said it would be difficult to assess the exact reason behind a call drop. As there could be challenges or disputes, compensation wasn’t a solution, he added.
In an interview with Business Standard in August, Sharma had said, “In some cases, the average hides the actual data. It is necessary to slice and dice data. We need to have further data analytics to assess the root cause of call drops.”
Trai has also said it will conduct drive tests on new routes in seven cities, including Delhi and Mumbai, in December. It will add five cities — Ahmedabad, Indore, Surat, Bhubaneswar and Kolkata — as well as random routes, as telecom companies have questioned the selection of areas by the regulator for testing call-drop situations.
Thursday’s meeting was attended by Bharti Airtel India Managing Director (MD) and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Gopal Vittal; Vodafone India MD & CEO Sunil Sood; Idea Cellular MD & CEO Himanshu Kapania; Reliance Jio Infocomm MD Sanjay Mashruwala; and MTNL Director Sunil Kumar.
According to norms announced by Trai on October 16, operators will have to pay consumers Rs 1 for every call drop that occurs due to a fault in their network. The payment is limited to a cap of Rs 3 a user, a day. In its regulations, Trai had said it might review its decision after six months, after tracking the implementation of the norms, as well as the measures taken by operators to address call drops. Operators, however, asked Trai to roll back the compensation policy and questioned the regulator’s jurisdiction to impose such rules on them, as well as the technical feasibility of their implementation.
This week, COAI and the Asso-ciation of Unified Telecom Service Providers of India had written to Trai, saying telcos might have to raise rates because of such compensation, adding it would have an impact of three-five per cent on their financials.
“An impression is being created that the authority has imposed this regulation without considering the technical feasibility of its operation. Before issuing the regulation, the authority considered all aspects of the matter, including technical feasibility,” Sharma said. “They (industry) want us to review the decision. First, we will examine legally if Trai can review the decision or not and further decide the course of action,” he said.
Trai is also working on a technology that would show the status of service quality around a mobile tower, along with the name of telecom operators. The data would be displayed on the Trai website, which would be linked to the service-monitoring system of telecom operators.
“We are working on a system on our page which will have the quality of service (QoS). The ultimate goal is to have this map pan-India, but we will begin with some location. That will show near real-time status of QoS. Consumers will get to know the best operator in their area with the help of the map,” Sharma said.
