With the Government’s decision in favour of users for getting compensation of Rs1 for every dropped call, telecom operators cried foul, saying that the new rules can burn their pockets and it will nearly cost them around Rs150 crore a day. However, the Government said that the compensation would be paid only when call drop happens due to the calling party’s network and not on the receiving operator’s network.
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) on Friday decided to crack the whip on telecom companies, and asked them to start compensating for call drops from January 1, 2016.
As per the rules, this compensation would be provided to a subscriber for a maximum three dropped calls in a day and only when the call drop takes place due to problem in calling operator’s network. In case call drop happens due to an issue with receiving operator’s network, compensation will not be awarded. On an average, a consumer pays between 60-90 paise a minute for making a call. The new norms, announced on Friday by TRAI, follow a huge uproar over the menace of call drops.
“The compensation will be paid only when call drop happens due to the calling party’s network and not on the receiving operator’s network. The regulations say relief to customers will be provided by the originating service provider for each call drop within its network,” TRAI Secretary Sudhir Gupta said.
While the industry has raised question on feasibility of its execution under their telecom licences rules, experts feel the rule will not benefit customers in a big way. “The monetary benefits to consumers from the regulation may not be huge; but implementing it will be a challenge. Moreover, despite the heavy operator investments on acquiring spectrum, insufficient tower infrastructure to cater to the ever rising demand is leading to poor quality of service and call drops,” Ernst & Young India Global Telecommunications leader Prashant Singhal said.
Welcoming the TRAI’s decision, which would be binding on mobile operators, Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad hoped that the companies would improve their services so that they do not have to pay the penalty.
“We welcome it and hope that it will go a long way in addressing the concerns of the consumers. I appeal again to all operators to address the issue seriously. I hope the issue of call drops will become a thing of the past at the earliest so that the penalty provision of the regulations will not be required to be invoked,” Prasad said.
Announcing the compensation mechanism, TRAI said mobile operators will need to pay consumers Rs1 for every dropped call, subject to a maximum of three such calls in a day, with effect from January 1, 2016. Under new rules, the operator will have to send a message to the customer within four hours of a dropped call with details of the amount credited to his or her account.
For post-paid customers, the details of the credit would need to be provided in the next bill. The call drop has been defined as ‘a voice call, which after being successfully established, is interrupted prior to its normal completion and the cause of early termination is within the network of the service provider’.
The compensation would need to be paid to the calling customer who initiates such a voice call, TRAI said. Disappointed with the new norms, the industry players said the new norms would result in a huge monetary outgo.
“We are very disappointed, we do not believe this is the right solution. There is lot of ambiguity arising from the proposed solutions,” the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) Director General Rajan S Mathews said.
COAI estimated that the regulation may force the industry to shell out about Rs 150 crore every day even if half of the consumers in the country face this problem.