Mobile operators on Thursday expressed their concerns about compensation norms before the Government and pitchead for possible solution for the problem, but telecom regulator Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) conveyed them about consumers’ concern instead, saying that regulation on call drops is valid and asked the operators to compensate consumers for every dropped call from January 1.
In a meeting held in the national capital, both TRAI and mobile operators decided to meet every two weeks, to sort out issues and concerns surrounding call drops. On the other hand, the regulator asked mobile service providers to ready their systems to compensate consumers for the call drops from January 1 and in the meantime, it expressed its willingness to examine the issues raised by them as well.
“I have made it very clear that it is a valid regulation. It has been neither overturned by a competent authority, nor has been it annulled, modified or cancelled. The operators must take steps to prepare themselves to implement this,” Trai Chairman RS Sharma told reporters on Thursday.
However, a TRAI official said, “The two sides had decided that the joint team of officials from TRAI and mobile phone companies would assess the test results on networks, planned in Delhi, Mumbai, and five other cities by December.”
The meeting was attended by Bharti Airtel India Managing Director (MD) and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Gopal Vittal, Vodafone India MD and CEO Sunil Sood, Idea Cellular MD and CEO Himanshu Kapania, Reliance Jio Infocomm MD Sanjay Mashruwala and MTNl Director Sunil Kumar.
Industry body Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), DG Rajan S Mathews, Association of Unified Telecom Service Providers of India (AUSPI) Secretary General Ashok Sud and representatives of other telecom companies were also present. Telecom operators have also questioned selection of the areas by the regulator for testing call drops.
The regulator had already held a meeting with telecom operators on implementation of call drop compensation rules and steps taken by them to improve quality of service. According to the guidelines, telecom operators will have to compensate consumers Rs1 for every call drop that occurs due to fault in their network, which is limited to a maximum of Rs3 a day per consumer.
Telecom operators have questioned the regulator’s jurisdiction to impose such rules on them and technical feasibility of its implementation. “An impression is being created that the authority has imposed this regulation without considering the technical feasibility of its operation. Before issuing regulation, the authority has considered all aspects of the matter, including technical feasibility,” Sharma said.
Industry bodies such as COAI and AUSPI have written a letter to the regulator that implementation of the rules may lead to higher mobile call rates. “The industry bodies 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,” Sharma said.
Sharma, however, said the decision would be conveyed to telecom operators within two weeks. “Call drop benchmark is 2 per cent, but that does not mean that the operators can have 100 per cent in some areas. They have assured us to improve their performance. We are not here to only criticise them, but help them improve quality of service,” Sharma added.
Sharma said TRAI has agreed to add five cities -- Ahmedabad, Indore, Surat, Bhubaneswar and Kolkata -- for the tests and randomly select routes. Tests in the five cities were conducted in September, the report of which is ready.
“We will first share the report with telecom operators tomorrow to study their reservations and then publish it on the website after a week. The report on the 5 cities will give not just statistics, but reasons for call drops,” Sharma said.
The regulator will again conduct tests on new routes in seven cities, including Delhi and Mumbai, in December. “We hope that in the next week or so, TRAI will come back to us. We have to give them a chance to respond to our letter. We have not decided on a tariff hike, but operators are going to do something. It will be an individual operator’s call, but obviously there will be pressure on tariff if regulation stays,” Mathews said after meeting.