The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) has finalised recommendations on compensating consumers for call drops and is reported to have proposed incentives which may be either monetary or in the form of free calls or both.
Trai sources said the compensation for dropped calls would be Re 1 per minute and not exceeding three minutes of free calls in a day.
Trai chairman RS Sharma told FE the recommendations will be released on Friday. He refused to share details on compensation.
Sharma had earlier said the regulator will come out with suggestions on call drops by October 15 and will also come out with a quality-of-service paper in the next few days which will identify the reasons responsible for call drops.
Trai carried out another round of drive tests on September 28 and 29 and found problems related to call drops in Delhi and Mumbai. “There is no significant improvement in quality of mobile service in Delhi and Mumbai,” said a Trai official.
Trai said there is no significant improvement in the call drop issue in Mumbai and Delhi as operators are lagging on various fronts in meeting standards. The regulator has said that in Mumbai, no operator is meeting the benchmark while in Delhi top players Airtel, Vodafone and Aircel are found to be lagging in quality service.
As per data shared by Trai, call drops on the network of Idea, Reliance Communications and Tata Teleservices have improved in Delhi. However, problems on Aircel and Vodafone networks have intensified in the Capital. Bharti Airtel has improved the quality but is still far away from the set parameters. In case of Mumbai, none of the operators are meeting the benchmark pertaining to call drops.
The data shows there has been some improvement in call drops on the network of Aircel, Idea and Tata Teleservices (GSM) in Mumbai, while the problem has worsened on the network of Vodafone, Airtel and Reliance Communications (GSM).