TRAI to operators: Either meet the quality standards or pay penalties!

Landline and mobile operators will now have to meet certain quality standards on network services and customer-related parameters. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has unveiled three-stage graded financial penalties, which will be applicable if they fail to do so.

According to the new rules unveiled on Thursday, TRAI has also increased fines and penalties for telcos if they would not meet the quality standards.

The regulator has said in a statement that it has jacked up financial disincentives on mobile operators for non-compliance of network and customer-related benchmarks to Rs 1 lakh per parameter for the first violation in a quarter. For subsequent non-compliance on the same parameter consecutively in two or more quarters, the penalty will be higher at Rs 1.5 lakh, and still higher at Rs 2 lakh for each consecutive contravention.

Till now, network-related violations stood at Rs 50,000 and Rs 1 lakh for first and subsequent violations respectively, while non-compliance on customer-related quality violations attracted a financial disincentive of Rs 50,000 per parameter.

According to the regulator, the "current financial disincentives haven't served as a sufficient deterrent against non-compliance," which is why, it has revised the rates for both landline and mobile carriers for "non-compliance on both network and customer-related parameters".

TRAI is also working to fix the issue of call drops.

On being asked about the issue, Bharti Airtel chairman Sunil Mittal said he had been personally monitoring the call drop situation in Mumbai and Delhi. He, however, declined to comment on the Trai's latest move to increase financial penalties.

Unveiling the findings of drive tests conducted in Mumbai and Delhi in June, July and September, the sector regulator said the report endeavoured to assess mobile network conditions, specifically radio frequency coverage, network accessibility, and retainability of network, measured by the call drop rate.

However, TRAI's drive tests reveal that RCom topped the charts in sharply reducing call drops in Delhi, from a high 17.29% in June-July to 1.75% in September, which is below the 2% benchmark fixed by the regulator. Vodafone India's, on the contrary, rose from 4.28% (June-July) to 4.74% (September). Idea Cellular, the No 3 carrier, which had a relatively low call drop rate of 2.84% (June-July) reduced it further to 0.94%. Market leader Bharti Airtel, managed to contain call drops in Delhi from 8.04% (June-July) to 6.58% (September), but it remains well above the TRAI benchmark on this count.

(Image: Indiatimes)