Telecom comapnies show concern over sealing of mobile towers, blame it for

Last year, 1700 mobile towers were forced out of operation.

The TRAI is in hand with telecom service operators to find reasons for major call drops in Mumbai and Delhi.

As per this letter shared by top CEOs of telecom firms, for every 40 tower sealed by the Govt., they witness an increase of 20% in call drops.

A week back, as per reports from various sources, the PM of India, Mr. Narendra Modi, along with his whole cabinet, showed his concern towards constant call drops and stood in support for telecom department’s resolution to come up with corrective measures on the issue called ‘erring telcos’.

While they thanked the government and the regulator for their commitment to help them in this regard, the immediate trigger for them penning the joint letter was that despite such assurances from the top the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) two days prior to their writing had sealed 16 sites in Delhi.

“Telecom companies have directly blamed the tower-sealing drive initiated by Delhi Municipal Corporation (MCD) and other civic bodies for increased instances of call drops, as they said, “.

Telecom operators feel that the present cap will deter spectrum trading as big companies, which are potential buyers, will not be able to acquire more spectrum.

Call drops during peak hours have increased about two-fold in one year across the country.

Sharma also said that TRAI has already floated a consultation paper which essentially talks about compensating the consumers.

“Telecom operators shouldn’t and mustn’t evade their own responsibility and acceptability and work on optimizing the network, re-configuring the network and re-investing in the network”, communications and IT minister Ravi Shankar Prasad told when asked to comment on the joint letter.

Radiation from Mobile Signal Towers: Health Hazard?

He also dismissed the analysis made by World Health Organization (WHO) that stated that there is no apparent harm being caused by these radiations.

The Department of Telecom (DoT) is expected to notify within a week spectrum sharing rules while implementation of trading regulations will take some more time.

After a round of hullabaloo on the issue, the DoT, on August 12th approved the presumed spectrum sharing guidelines according to which, telecom operators would be able to airwaves more than they acquire through auction. In this case, a telecom operator can promote its proper to make use of spectrum to a different cellular service supplier, which isn’t allowed underneath spectrum sharing rules.