Telecom secretary calls meeting over call drops

With the issue of dropped calls continuing to exercise the authorities, Telecom Secretary J S Deepak has called a meeting of chief executives of mobile service providers to discuss that and other issues.

"The telecom secretary has called a meeting of CEOs of telecom companies on 10 June to discuss issues in the sector and call drops," a source told PTI.

In the latest test drive conducted by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India in Delhi, state-owned telecom operator Mahanagar Telecom Nigam Ltd failed on all network-based quality of service parameters.

"Airtel, Vodafone, Reliance, Aircel and Idea need to further improve their call drop rate performance. The CDMA operators and MTNL need to improve across all parameters in order to offer acceptable levels of service," Trai said in the report.

As per the report for Delhi, Aircel and Vodafone have been using radio-link technology (RLT) beyond the levels their peers follow. RLT is one of the parameters which decides for how long the call should be sustained if the signal quality drops below a certain threshold. As per an official source, some telecom operators are using it for masking call drops, resulting in higher bills for subscribers.

Trai has sought more powers to penalise mobile operators as most of them have failed to meet the quality benchmark in this regard.

The Supreme Court recently quashed a rule that mandated telecom operators to compensate consumers Re1 for each call drop with an upper limit of Rs3 per day (See: Trai suffers blow as SC strikes down call drop penalty).

At present, disputes between consumers and telecom operators are not taken up by consumer courts as a Supreme Court judgement of 2009 had barred seeking any such relief under the Consumer Protection Act, saying a special remedy is provided under the Indian Telegraph Act.

The National Telecom Policy 2012 envisages legislative measures to bring disputes between telecom consumers and service providers within the jurisdiction of consumer forums established under the Consumer Protection Act. However, it is yet to be executed by the government.

Telecom industry body COAI has questioned regulator Trai's call-drop test results as operators say the issue is limited to the areas where they face problems in installing towers.