Prompted by the rising incidence of mobile call drops and poor network coverage, the director general of audit (post & telecom) has pointed out to the department of telecommunications (DoT) that telecom operators are not using spectrum efficiently or adhering to service quality standards.
?Some of the service providers were repeatedly not meeting the quality of service benchmarks (set by Trai) for some of the prescribed parameters,? noted DG (Audit). He has also questioned the authenticity of the Quality of Service (QoS) audit conducted by agencies hired by the telecom regulator.
The director general has advised DoT that the existing parameters fixed by Trai for frequency of QoS audit, stipulation of coverage and quality of manpower involved in the audit exercise, and sample size need a thorough revisit so that QoS audit reflects an authentic and realistic position of the quality of service provided by telecom operators.
Under the Trai Act, 1997, the regulator is mandated to lay down standards of the quality of service provided by mobile operators and conduct periodic surveys through independent agencies to monitor compliance of the benchmarks.
As per the DG (Audit), while one service provider has been catering to the customer base of 91 lakh with 10 MHz spectrum in Delhi, another operator with 12.4 MHz (6.2 MHz in the 900 MHz band and the remaining in 1,800 MHz band) is providing services to to barely 26 lakh customers. ?All these claims raise red flags on the credibility of the claims of the telecom service operators about their subscriber bases and also authenticity of the QoS audit done by agencies hired by Trai,? said DG (Audit) in the report to telecom secretary.
The director general also blamed inaction on part of DoT and Trai in enforcing quality of service benchmarks on mobile operators, as the reason behind the failure of the recent spectrum auctions conducted in November 2012 and March 2013. ?Apparent cartelisation by the telecom service providers observed recently in the last two spectrum auctions, wittingly or unwittingly, aided and abated by the inaction of the licensor and the authority to enforce quality of service, have already cost the government very dearly…?
The government earned one-tenth of the R40,000 crore it had estimated from sale of 2G spectrum during the November auction while the March auction saw only one CDMA bidder since all others claimed the high base price as the reason to refrain from bidding. ?It has further emboldened the concerned parties to demand a further reduction in the base price of the spectrum in future auctions,? said DG (Audit).
