The lackadaisical attitudes of telecom firms in providing quality services, including proper call delivery pan India, may not prevail for a long time as Government is likely to empower Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) with more independent powers in order to fix all problems, such as call drops in particular faced by the mobile users in the country. The move is part of the Telecom Ministry’s ongoing campaign to crack down on telecom firms, many of which recently fail to meet basic service quality standards for consumers.
As the regulator and telecom firms have been at loggerheads over the issue of call drops for a long time, TRAI last week had released a study that showed most of telecom majors, including Airtel, RCom and public sector firm MTNl, showing degradation in performance and failed on quality of service parameters.
“Unhappy over Honourable Supreme Court’s order in favour of telecom firms on call drops recently, the Government is mulling special powers for TRAI to strengthen its regulations. It has also expressed its concerns on how to provide quality services to the mobile users in the country, including proper call delivery for which the regulator needs penal powers in this regard. We will study the TRAI Act minutely, and if there is scope for amendment of the TRAI Act, the Government will do the needful and may take call for the sake of consumers,” a Government source close to development told The Pioneer on Wednesday.
The initial drive test by the regulator covered some select areas in Delhi only and it has been found that the companies performed poorly in terms of call drops. Over the next few days, the regulator also plans to release similar studies for 11 more cities in the country.
“We have received the request letter from the regulator on this issue and we are sure the Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad will intervene in the case shortly. The Government will soon start its process empowering the regulator after getting the results all drive tests on call drops. On an average if the telecom firms, mainly six telecom majors that have been listed on drive test, fail to deliver TRAI’s expectation on call drops, the Ministry is expected to act tough in this regard,” the source added.
Meanwhile, in a recent development following Government’s proactive actions on call drops, State-run MTNl has taken a major step to zero in on such problems. The public sector telecom firm in its board meeting on May 30 has decided to tie up its major mobile services including GSM operation with BSNl on revenue sharing basis, according to the sources.
“Following the MTNl decision, now GSM operation will be looked after by BSNl and we hope it will take care of call drop issue. All the services offered to the BSNl will be effective from October this year. As BSNl is in better position, both in revenue and services, we expect the call drop menace in both the PSU telecom firms will be resolved soon,” it said.
TRAI on Wednesday also said in its communication to the Department of Telecom (DoT) that the Government needs to amend law to allow it to impose penalty of up to Rs10 crore on mobile operators and jail term of up to two years on their executives for any violation of regulatory framework. The regulator has also suggested to the DoT amendments in various provisions in the TRAI Act, 1997, with a view to be an effective sector regulator.
The Telecom Ministry has been saying time and again that no telecom company will be spared if they continuously violate the norms on such issues. The regulator had come out with the study after its earlier move to penalise telecom firms for call drops, was struck down by the Supreme Court, which termed the move was ‘arbitrary’. However, TRAI norms state that not more than 2 per cent of the calls on a network should be dropped. Based on these guidelines, in October, the regulator suggested penalising telcos by making them pay Rs1 to a user for every call drop, subject to a maximum of three dropped calls per day, with effect from 1 January 2016. The move attracted widespread criticism from telecom associations which went to court to seek relief from the regulator’s order.