Penalties not the answer to call drops, say operators

India's telecom operators have reacted negatively to the government's move to impose penalties for dropped calls and dismal mobile coverage, and have exhorted the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India not to make such compensation to customers mandatory.

"Compensation to the consumer for call drops is not the correct approach and will not solve the problem," the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), said on Tuesday in response to the Trai, which had earlier this month floated a consultation paper and sought industry views on compensating customers for dropped calls.

The COAI, which represents top mobile operators such as Bharti Airtel, Vodafone India, Idea Cellular and emerging 4G player Reliance Jio Infocomm, said, "Nowhere in the world is compensation to consumers for dropped calls mandated, barring Colombia."

However the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) has taken a contrary view. In its response, TISS opposed he carriers' view and said users should be compensated by telecom operators, and suggested that 'credit of talk-time in monetary terms' would be a suitable method for compensating the consumers for call drops.

The AUSPI, which represents CDMA operators like Reliance Communications, Tata Teleservices and Sistema Shyam Teleservices, backed COAI, saying telcos shouldn't have to compensate consumers for call drops, which are caused by factors beyond the carriers' control, such as unreasonable radiation concerns of some citizens and restrictions and arbitrary rules by municipalities and local bodies.

"There are some instances where some operators in certain geographies are following such measures, but not all operators in those geographies are compensating for call drops," said the COAI in its response.

Internal research, it said, also suggested that mandatory compensation for dropped calls "is not on the regulators' radar in key South and Southeast Asian countries," including Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Malaysia, Indonesia, Cambodia and Singapore.

"In these markets, regulators have used mandatory QoS (quality of services) standards to manage coverage quality issues," said the COAI, in its response to Trai.

AUSPI further noted that Trai's examples of international markets, which compensated consumers, couldn't be compared to the market situation in India. "The offerings by these international operators are driven by their respective competition in the market and resultant customer strategies and not by regulation," it said.

As a result, it said, the industry feels 'consumer compensation' will not solve the call drops menace as "there are several technical and reconciliation issues" such as identifying the telco responsible for the dropped call, issues pertaining to handset quality and even interference caused by illegal wideband repeaters, which can trigger the phenomenon.

Under the circumstances, carriers have urged the sector regulator to take steps to avert potential coverage challenges induced by spectrum changeover issues in the metros to stop call drops instead of going all out to punish telcos. Auspi urged the government to declare telecom services and infrastructure as essential services, formulate uniform enforcement of tower policy and right of way rules and push for space on government land, buildings and defence land.

The industry's forceful responses - with separate responses from top carriers like Bharti Airtel, Vodafone, Idea and Reliance Communications - comes after telcos faced sharp criticism for dropped calls.

A part of the flak has been over the fact that a person on a per minute plan gets charged for the entire minute even if the call drops after a few seconds.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and finance minister Arun Jaitley have also come down heavily on mobile operators for rising call drops and backed the telecom department's call for punitive measures against erring mobile operators.