Airtel, Vodafone, Idea cross Trai limits on billing plaints

According to the latest report published by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), Airtel, Vodafone, and Idea have all received a high number of billing complaints between October and December in 2016.

With a 0.11 per cent to 0.12 per cent benchmark violation range, Bharti Airtel received most of its complaints from 2G prepaid users in regions including Tamil Nadu along with Chennai, Kolkata, Haryana, and Jammu and Kashmir.

Vodafone, on the other hand, had received the maximum number of violation complaints from subscribers in Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka on with 0.15 per cent and 0.13 per cent of its bills respectively.

According to a PTI report, Vodafone is the only telco in the October-December 2016 period to have received complaints regarding quality from its postpaid subscribers in Mumbai circle.

As per the quality of service norms, the number of complaints received by a telco should not exceed more than 0.1 per cent per 100 bills issued in any given quarter.

In the case of Idea, most of its complaints came from its north-east circle with 0.13 per cent of disputed bills.

When other quality parameters were taken into consideration, TRAI found Aircel to be offering subpar performance with call drops in most of its circles.

Telcos offering poor mobile services including call drops will have to pay a penalty fee of up to Rs2 lakh according to the rules set by TRAI. Telcos will be penalised should they record over 2 per cent call drops in a particular quarter in one of its circle.

Aircel's 2G network, according to the report, has crossed the limit in four of its circles with its call drop rate measuring as high as 27.73 in the north-east circle.

Similarly, Airtel, Sistema Shyam and Reliance Communications (GSM) have also crossed the set limit in one circle each.

In fact, even during the peak hours when the limit is relaxed up to 3 per cent, the call drop rate for Aircel 2G was still over this level in 11 of its 22 telecom circles.

BSNL, the state-owned telco, along with Tata Teleservices (CDMA) and Vodafone have also failed on the 3 per cent limit during peak hours in one circle each.

Telenor, on the other hand, was found offering subpar performance in Bihar and UP East circles.

When it comes to telcos which breached the deposits refund category, Reliance Communications found to be the number one offender, with Tata Teleservices next to on the list.

According to rules set by TRAI, telcos have to refund 100 per cent of the claimed deposit in the next 60 days.