New Delhi: In a big blow for telecom companies, the Telecom Regulatory Authority for India (TRAI) has ordered them to compensate consumers for call drops, sources said.
According to the sources, the nature of compensation is yet to be decided. The sources confirmed that this move came after TRAI's call drop audit conducted in the cities of Delhi and Mumbai was unsatisfactory.
At a time when telecos and government are claiming that call drop issue is improving, the regulator has said that in Mumbai, no operator is meeting the benchmark while in Delhi three top players Airtel, Vodafone and Aircel are found to be lagging in offering good quality services.
As per data shared by Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), call drops on network of Idea Cellular, Reliance Communications and Tata Teleservices have improved in Delhi.
"In Mumbai none of the operators are meeting the prescribed benchmark, there is marginal improvement in some of the operators, while in Delhi some of the operators have improved the benchmark and three operators are still not meeting the benchmark," TRAI said in a statement.
However, problem on Aircel and Vodafone network has further deteriorated in the national capital. Airtel has improved the quality but it is still far away from the set parameters.
In case of Mumbai, none of the operators are meeting the benchmark pertaining to call drops.
The data shows that there has been some improvement in call drop on network of Aircel, Idea Cellular and Tata Teleservices (GSM) in Mumbai, while the problem has further worsened on network of Vodafone, Airtel and Reliance Communications (GSM).
The regulator found that only Tata Teleservices in Delhi and Airtel in Mumbai are offering voice quality as per set standard.
"In Delhi, most of the operators have improved their quality though only one operator was able to meet the benchmark," TRAI said.
The regulator had in June and July conducted drive tests in Mumbai and Delhi, which showed unsatisfactory network quality. TRAI than convened a meeting of all telecom operators to improve quality of network.
To assess the improvement, TRAI had undertaken repeat drive test in Mumbai and Delhi on September 27 and 28, 2015 to assess improvements.
Call drops have become a severe problem in recent months and concerns have been raised by Prime Minister Narendra Modi as well in this regard.
(With inputs from PTI)
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