At a time when there is an increase in incidents of network outages, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) on Tuesday directed telecom operators to report such major incidents within 24 hours of their occurrence. The telcos will also have to report the rootcause of such major network outage along with corrective actions taken within 72 hours of restoration of the services.
Major network outages mean the absence of telecom services for a continuous period of over four hours. The reporting of such outages by the telcos will help Trai to assess the information at the district level, and take actions accordingly.
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“The authority has observed that incidences of major network outage of telecom networks occurring due to technical reasons or due to natural calamities are not reported by the telecom service providers to TRAI. There have been major network outages in the country of prolonged duration, especially in border and hilly areas, which adversely affect the availability and quality of services being provided,” the telecom regulator said in a statement.
Earlier this month, Jio services were down temporarily for several users across Delhi-NCR, according to the outage tracking website Downdetector. Last year too, there were multiple incidents of network outages being reported by the users of telcos such as Airtel and Jio.
Last month, Trai had asked the telcos to start reporting quality of services (QoS) data including network outages, call drops, etc for states and union territories starting with the January-March quarter. The regulator also conducted meeting with telcos in order to improve the quality of services and take a granular approach to improve service quality.
“In the first phase, we have decided that we will start looking at the quality of service at the state level and after assessing that, we will then go to district levels,” Trai chairman PD Vaghela had told FE.
Going by the present parameters to check quality of services, Trai follows an averaging pattern from a licensed service area (LSA) point of view, which in a way does not present a clear picture about outages and issues in small states and other areas.
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With regard to state-wise data, the telcos will have to submit the wireline service quality data within 45 days from the end of each quarter, and mobile services data within 21 days, according to Trai directions. “LSA-wise data, as currently being submitted through various performance monitoring reports, shall continue to be submitted,” Trai said.
