Press Trust of India
New Delhi, Jan 6: Lack of investment by telecom firms in network infrastructure like mobile towers, appears to be the main reason behind the “pervasive problem” of call drops across the country, TRAI told Delhi High Court Wednesday. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) told the court that the telecom majors, including Vodafone, Bharti Airtel and Reliance, “have failed to keep the investments to commensurate with the pace of increase in usage and the growth in number of subscribers being added by them”.
This was stated by TRAI in an affidavit placed before a bench of Chief Justice G Rohini and Justice Jayant Nath which said it would hear the matter Thursday after the cellular operators file their response to the authority’s affidavit. “The investment made in the infrastructure (other than radio spectrum) in wireless access service segment rose by only 4.6 per cent from Rs 2,02,399 crore in the financial year 2012-2013 to Rs 2,11,691 crore in financial year 2013-2014. During this period, the minutes of usage (MOU) grew by 6.8 per cent and the data usage grew by more than 100 per cent.
“Clearly, the investment has not kept pace with the usage. It appears that the lack of investment in network infrastructure by the petitioners is one of the main reasons for the problem of call drops,” TRAI has said. It has also said that “the surge in data consumption has led to an increase in the share of data revenue in the overall subscriber revenue of the telecom service providers (TSPs).”However, they cannot be permitted to ignore the quality of service of voice calls, which continues to be the primary service for the telecom consumers.”
The telecom regulator’s response came on the pleas filed by Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), Association of Unified Telecom Service Providers of India (AUSPI) and 21 telecom operators, challenging TRAI’s October 16, 2015, rule mandating them to pay consumers one rupee per call drop experienced on their networks, subject to a cap of Rs 3 a day. TRAI has refuted the claim of the telecom majors that they would incur huge losses if the compensation rule was implemented, saying “the total financial implication on service providers was likely to be not more than Rs 800 crore per annum” which would be 0.75 per cent of their Adjusted Gross Revenue of Rs 1,38,566 crore for the year 2014-15. “Call drop is a pervasive problem in the country and seems to have aggravated with the passage of time leading to increased consumers dissatisfaction. Existing measures have not served to reduce the incidence of such call drops.
