The call drop rate has reduced by 8 per cent in the last one year,
Communications Minister Manoj Sinha said here on Friday, adding that the
government aimed to bring it down further by the year-end.
After a review meeting with telecom operators, the minister told
reporters that the rate had come down by 8 per cent since the last
review meeting held a year ago. Sinha also said that there was
“substantial improvement” in customer satisfaction as well.
All major telecom companies were present at the meeting, including
Bharti Airtel, Vodafone, Reliance Jio, Idea Cellular, Telenor, BSNL and
Reliance Communications.
The minister said the telecom companies had met the target of setting up
60,000 cellular sites or BTS with an investment of Rs 12,000 crore in
100 days.
The Indian telecom watchdog on Aug 18 announced stricter rules regarding
call drops and said telecom operators who didn’t meet the norms could
be fined at least Rs 5 lakh.
“Graded financial disincentives in case service providers fail to meet
the DCR (drop call rates) benchmarks have been introduced, in which
amount payable may depend upon the extent of deviation from the
benchmarks,” the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) said
recently.
It said that if the benchmark is not met, the service provider may be
fined up to Rs 5 lakh against one parameter “depending upon the extent
of deviation of performance from the benchmark”.
“In case of consecutive contravention of the benchmarks for two
quarters, financial disincentive may be up to one-and-half times — and
in case of consecutive contravention of the benchmark for more than two
quarters, it may be twice the amount,” said the regulator.
TRAI said the amended regulation of “Quality of Service” would be
effective from October 1. Previously, penalty on call drop norm
violation was Rs 50,000 per violation.
No comments:
Post a Comment