Call Quality Deteriorates in Parts of India

India's cellular network operators are required to submit quarterly Performance Reports of their networks under their service area in the format prescribed by the telecoms regulator (TRAI). The Authority has laid down benchmarks for a number of QoS parameters, so as to monitor the Quality of Service being given by the operators to their customers. In this quarter, 82 number of the mobile service providers have reported their QoS performance.

While 51 service providers have fully met the benchmark of 99% call success rate, Bharti Cellular in Maharashtra and Goa and BSNL in Maharashtra, Himachal Pradesh, Kerala and Karnataka is below even 90% mark. There has been a deterioration in the performance of these providers in the Circles mentioned compared to the last quarter.

The call drop rate performance has been met by all Companies except Reliance in Bihar, BSNL in Assam, Himachal Pradesh and Haryana. Compared to the previous quarter, the performance of these service providers has deteriorated in the Circles mentioned.

Billing complaints per 100 bills issued has been found to be within norms for 49 operators. The worst offenders are Hutchitson Essar in Andhra Pradesh, Tata Telecom in Mumbai & Maharashtra and BSNL in Punjab, Karnataka, Kolkata, Maharashtra and Kerala.

The Authority says that it has taken note through its own monitoring system, of performance deterioration in some areas of mobile services. It has found that the mobile operators have not been able to expand their network and related infrastructure like call centers etc. at a pace at which they are increasing the subscriber base. This has resulted in increase in Network congestion; Billing problem and deterioration in the performance of customer care centers. The Authority had called senior management of mobile service operators for discussions. The points emerging from these discussions have been taken note of and actions have been initiated. The include auditing of the billing systems of service providers, monitoring the action plan for improving performance of individual operators, etc. The Authority has now following this up with individual operator level discussions."

Posted to the site on 7th December 2004