“Calls if dropped should not be charged because many times our villagers make call and it get dropped due to a lack of connectivity… they pay money without talking. It comes out to be a harassment”
New Delhi : Telecom operators have opposed telecom regulator Trai’s proposal to compensate users for call drops even as consumers backed it strongly, reports PTI.
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India had earlier this month floated a consultation paper seeking public comments on a proposal suggesting service providers should compensate mobile subscribers for call drops and poor quality of services.
TRAI’s proposal has so far seen hundreds of individuals commenting through MyGov portal to protect their interest.
Citing the losses incurred to them due to call drops, people demanded that they should get double the cost for each lost call.
“Calls if dropped should not be charged because many times our villagers make call and it get dropped due to a lack of connectivity… they pay money without talking. It comes out to be a harassment,” a consumer commented on the proposal.
Many others complaint about absence of mobile towers around their villages. There are hundreds of comments from people seeking compensation for failure in mobile internet connection as well along with call drops.
Bharti Airtel said that no quality conscious customer would want to avail of free talk time or compensation in lieu of poor quality of service. No amount of free minutes or compensation can improve the quality of service, the operator said.
Idea Cellular went a step further and said no wireless network technology allows 100% availability of network at all times without any call drop.
The Aditya Birla group company said the problem of call drops is a local one at few locations in metro cities and is not a pan India phenomenon. It said the regulator’s methodology of drive tests in Delhi and Mumbai was non-transparent, and therefore cannot be the basis for any fresh mandate.
The Cellular Operators Association of India cited network congestion as one of major factors leading to coverage disruption resulting in call drops. “Mandatory compensation for dropped calls is not on regulators’ radar in South Asian countries (Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Pakistan) and Southeast Asian countries (Malaysia, Indonesia, Cambodia and Singapore),” the industry body said.
State-run BSNL and MTNL cited technical reasons due to which they cannot compensate for call drops. “As call drop information is not part of the charging systems therefore, the calls of duration of 5 sec or less not to be charged or making the last pulse free is not technically feasible. Therefore, we do not agree that the calling customers should not be charged for the call that got dropped within 5 seconds or more,” MTNL said.
However, Gujarat-based Consumer Protection Group said that consumers pay for a good quality of service and telcos get paid for delivering good services.
“If the service has not been provided or not been completely provided, the promise of service has been broken and hence the service provider should not be paid for the broken promise. Japanese train service refunds the cost of ticket if the train is even one minute late,” the group said. It mentioned that Uninor and Reliance are compensating consumers with free minutes and earlier Bharti Airtel has taken similar initiative in Andhra Pradesh.
The issue of call drops even attracted attention of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who directed government officials to take urgent steps to resolve the problem, which aggravated after a number of resident welfare associations had opposed installation of telecom towers near residential colonies fearing radiation.
