Call drop penalty effective from January 1

On Thursday, Trai said telcos will have to pay their subscribers Rs1 for every call drop they experience on their network, subject to a cap of three call drops a day, starting from 1 January 2016 (See: Consumers to get Re1 for every call-drop). In Delhi region, only a few operators are meeting the benchmark while leading operators like Airtel and Vodafone are below-par on this front. On his part, telecom minister Ravi Shankar Prasad welcomed the move but hoped that operators would resolve the issue of call drops and that the penal provisions would not be have to be invoked.

COAI Director General Rajan S Mathews expressed disappointment on the regulation and called it diversion from real issues that are responsible for call drops. “But if no proper resolution comes out of the dialogue, we will have to seek legal help to protect our interests”, he said.

Mathews further said that TRAI has ignored various issues in framing the new rules and “if there is a problem in the network of the subscriber to whom the call is being made, then the company from whose network the call has originated cannot be penalised”.

The regulator said it is of the view that the mandated regime would provide relief to the customers from the menace of call drops to a few extent and spur service providers to improve quality of service.

“Our first preference is to engage in a dialogue with TRAI to get clarifications over call drop norms, keeping in mind there is time till December 31”. It also said for post paid customers, the details of the credit should be provided in the next bill. “Trai will maintain an in depth watch on the implementation of the mandate in addition to the measures being initiated by the service suppliers to attenuate the issue of dropped calls and may undertake a assessment after six months, if needed”.

As per the new norms announced by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) on Friday, the compensation will be provided to a subscriber for a maximum three dropped calls in a day.

But the representative body, Cellular Operators Association of India (COIA) said the watchdog has not defined the cause or the reason for the dropped calls.

However, the compensation will be given only if the call drop takes place due to the calling party’s network and not because of the receiving operator’s network.

“By taking away that much money (amount to be paid to consumers as compensation) from us, we have that much less money to invest in our network (to improve the call drop situation)”, he added. To start with, who will determine whether or not it is a call drop?

Credit Suisse research analyst Sunil Tirumalai thinks the penalty for call drops might be abused by enterprising users.

If operators actually need to present high quality service, they must spend money on a strong infrastructure. For shoppers, getting telecom corporations to fall in line has not been straightforward. Even those that have registered for Do-Not-Disturb are nonetheless inundated with messages and calls.