TRAI responds to concerns over its regulation regarding call drops

TRAI clarifies that it had issued the regulation on 'Relief to consumers for call drops' after conducting a transparent consultation with stakeholders and a detailed analysis of facts  

BestMediaInfo Bureau | Delhi | November 16, 2015

TRAI has responded to media reports on the issue of relief to consumers for dropped calls. On October 16, 2015, it had issued the ninth amendment to the Telecom Consumers Protection Regulations, 2012 mandating the mobile service providers to provide relief to the consumers for call drops with effect from January 1, 2016.

In some sections of media reports about TRAI regulation on 'Relief to consumers for call drops', the following concerns were raised:

1. It may not be technically possible to implement the TRAI regulation.

2. The regulation would result in huge financial impact on the operators. In one of the media reports, the financial loss has been mentioned as Rs 54,000 crore per year.

The authority has clarified that it had issued the regulation on 'Relief to consumers for call drops' after conducting a transparent consultation with all the stakeholders and a detailed analysis of the facts and figures related to the issue.

It stated:

1. It is technically possible for the telecom service providers (TSPs) to implement the regulation.

2. Sufficient time has been given by the authority to the TSPs to make suitable provisions so as to comply with the regulation.

3. The media reports about financial implications of Rs 54,000 crore per year on account of call drop compensation are exaggerated and appear to be based on COAI/AUSPI's apprehension that 50 per cent of the consumers would manipulate and misuse the regulation to get Rs 3 every day from the TSPs.

4. The authority notes that such a sweeping presumption about the consumers is not correct. Further, based on data of the TSPs, the Authority had conducted a detailed analysis of the call data and call drops data. It is observed that the total financial implications on TSPs is likely to be not more than Rs 200 crore per quarter, which is less than 1per cent of the total revenue of the TSPs. However, as per the regulation, there is a ceiling on relief of Rs 3 per subscriber per day; thus, the likely financial implications would be even less than Rs 200 crore per quarter.

Info@BestMediaInfo.com

Info@BestMediaInfo.com