TRAI conducts tests in 7 cities to assess call drops

In its report, TRAI stated, “It appears that the lack of investment in network infrastructure by the petitioners is one of the main reasons for the problem of call drops; the consumer should not be deprived of quality of service by the failure of the service provider to upgrade their network”.

The Delhi High Court on Thursday asked the telecom regulator whether telecom companies paying compensation to subscr-ibers for call drops was the “only solution” to reduce call drops.

Indian telecom operators today upped the ante in their battle with the government over dropped mobile calls, warning that if they have to compensate subscribers for call drops, they would be forced to increase their voice and data tariffs.

A Division Bench said during the hearing on a writ petition moved by the Cellular Operators Association of India and others challenging the new rule that if it was set aside in future, the telecom operators forced to compensate the consumers would not be able to recover the money.

Stressing that call drops have worsened over time to become a pervasive problem, the regulator said compensation for call drops and steps taken by the authority in this regard have been considered in public interest.

Last week, the top telecom companies had chose to ignore this directive till the Delhi High Court gave its final decision on January 6th.

He opposed the stay on the implementation of Trai’s call drop compensation order saying it was meant to make the telecom companies “fall in line”.

The Bench posted the case for further hearing on January 11 after hearing arguments from both the sides for over two hours.

Stating that the Telecom Consumers Protection (9th Amendment) Regulations, 2015 is in nature of sub-ordinate legislation and the legislature and its delegate are the “sole repositories of the power to decide what policy should be pursued in relation to matters covered by the Act and there is no scope for interference by the court unless the particular provision impugned before it can be said to suffer from any legal infirmity. We have assessed the situation and made a decision to limit the cost of compensation to customer to Rs 3 per day”, the TRAI counsel told the court. “But consumers are asking to be compensated for all call drops”, Narasimha said.

It said the investment had not kept pace with the increase in usage and the number of subscribers.

TRAI said the problem (call drops) is country-wide, and not restricted to a few cities or pockets.

The affidavit statement from the telecom regulator came as a response to the pleas from the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), Association of Unified Telecom Service Providers of India (AUSPI) around 21 more telecom operators.