Telecom Networks Fail on TRAI Test

Telecom regulator Trai on Wednesday approached the government for powers to penalise mobile operators as most of them have failed to pass the quality TRAI test in this regard. This has caused concern in the TRAI circles.

"As Supreme Court in its judgement has observed that Trai does not have power to impose such (call drop) penalty on telecom operators, we will write to DoT on Wednesday for amendment in Trai Act to give us more power," Trai Secretary Sudhir Gupta said.

At present, conflicts between consumers and telecom operators are not addressed by consumer courts, because a Supreme Court judgement of 2009 had barred seeking any such relief under the Consumer Protection Act, saying a special provision is made under the Indian Telegraph Act.

The National Telecom Policy 2012 envisages "to undertake legislative measures to bring disputes between telecom consumers and service providers within the jurisdiction of consumer forums established under the Consumer Protection Act". However, it is yet to be implemented by the government.

The telecom operators say they have improved network efficiency by installing more mobile towers, the report said "All 3G networks; 2G networks of Airtel and MTNL and CDMA network of RCom have shown degradation in performance compared to previous drive test".

In the latest test conducted by Trai in Delhi, the MTNL failed on all network based quality of service parameters.

"Airtel, Vodafone, Reliance, Aircel and Idea need to further improve the Call Drop Rate performance. The CDMA operators and MTNL need to improve across all parameters, in order to offer acceptable levels of service," Trai said.