The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) said that the telecommunication companies of India need to upgrade their infrastructural network to reduce the problem of call drops. According to the telecom regulator from India, the leading telecom firms of the country such as Bharti Airtel, Vodafone and Reliance have failed to invest in their network infrastructure including the mobile towers, which can be the reason for consistent call drops problem.
TRAI presented its affidavit to a bench of Chief Justice, Jayant Nath and G Rohini where it stated that the Telecom companies in India could not match the investments in network infrastructure, with the speed of increased usage of the network in the country. The authority said that although there has been a rapid rise in the growth of subscribers, the Telecom firms did not update their infrastructure to match the growing requirements.
Investment does not match the growth in MOU, data usage
The cellular operators are expected to file their reaction to the affidavit from TRAI on January 7. The telecommunication company investments in the infrastructure in the segment of wireless access service increased from Rs, 2,02,399 crore in 2012-2013 financial year to Rs.2,11,691 crore in a 2013-2014 financial year, a rise of only 4.6%. It is comparatively lesser than the 6.8% growth in the minutes of usage (MOU) and more than 100% increase in data usage, which according to TRAI is the primary reason for the consistent problem of call drops.
TRAI has asked the cellular operators to pay their users Rs.1/call dropped on the networks and a cap of Rs.3/day, applicable from January 2016. The operators have decided to wait for further directions from the court. The authorized regulator is conducting tests on regular call drops incidences in Mumbai, New Delhi, Kolkata, Surat, Bhubaneswar, Pune and Indore and also to assess the quality of the network.
The affidavit statement from the telecom regulator came as a response to the pleas from the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), Association of Unified Telecom Service Providers of India (AUSPI) around 21 more telecom operators.
