DOT dials CEOS of telcos as call drop situation worsens

TRAI HAD RAISED THE PENALTY FOR VIOLATING DROPPED CALL NORMS TO ₹10 LAKH. THE RULES CAME INTO EFFECT ON OCTOBER 1

NEWDELHI: The department of telecommunications (DOT) has summoned chief executives of top telecom companies on Wednesday (January 10) to discuss monitoring of dropped calls norms that were announced by the telecom regulator last year.

DOT will hold a separate meeting with Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) on January 10 on the same issue.

The quality of calls has worsened over the past few months, telecom secretary Aruna Sundararajan said, adding that it wants to convey the government’s serious concern to telcos. Trai had raised the penalty for violating norms to ₹10 lakh. The rules came into effect on October 1.

“The quality of service had become better in between but of late we have been getting a lot of complaints (of call drops),” Sundararajan told reporters on Monday. “Operators need to ensure their networks are harmonised,” she said on the sidelines of a conference held to mark the completion of the first phase of Bharatnet, the Centre’s programme to connect gram panchayats with high-speed internet.

In August, Trai announced stricter norms effective October 1 to curb dropped calls and had also put in place a graded penalty clause for erring operators under which if an operator fails to meet the call drop benchmark in a quarter, it may be liable to pay up to ₹5 lakh. The penalty on the operator can go up to ₹10 lakh for not meeting benchmarks for more than two quarters.

The regulator has also shifted to a new system of assessing the dropped call rate, which will now be measured at the mobile tower level instead of at the telecom circle level. It expects the revision in norms to remove the anomaly, which arises due to averaging of call drop rate of bad performing cells in the network with good or excellent performing cells.

The October-december quarter will be the first quarter of reporting under the new norms and Trai last month issued a fresh format for operators to submit network-related data for checking service quality.

After the new guidelines were released, the Cellular Operators Association of India had said that quality of service is beyond the absolute control of a telecom company as it depends on several factors such as number of users accessing the network at a time and the kind of device being used.