The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has issued stringent rules to curb call drops with a maximum penalty of Rs 10 lakh on cellular service providers if they fail to meet the voice quality benchmarks for three successive quarters. The regulator also noted that this would be effective from October 1, 2017.
TRAI Chairman RS Sharma has said that they have proposed financial disincentive in the range of Rs 1 lakh to Rs 5 lakh. He also said that it is a graded penalty system depending on the performance of the telecom network. Besides, TRAI Secretary in-charge S K Gupta has explained that if an operator failed to meet call drop benchmark in the consecutive quarter, the penalty amount would be increased 1.5 times, and for failure in the third consecutive month, this will be doubled. However, he said that there is a cap of Rs 10 lakh on financial disincentive.
Under the previous Quality of Service Rule, telcos need to pay Rs 50,000 to 1 lakh for call drops or if they are not meeting the norms. Now the regulator has made measurement of call drop rate more granular from circle level to mobile towers in a circle. Under the revised rule, 90% of base transceiver station or mobile site in a telecom circle 90% of time should not fail to handle 98% of the call, which means not more than 2% calls handled by them should drop. During busy hours of the day, not more than 3% call drop should be registered on 90% of mobile towers in a telecom circle. Besides, the regulator also fixed the benchmark for radio-link time out technology, reportedly used by telecom operators for masking call drops.
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