Call drops will attract heavy penalty of up to Rs 10 lakhs

A steep penalty of Rs 5 lakhs will be imposed on mobile operators if they feel to meet the set benchmarks, as announced by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) under the aegis of the revised Quality of Service (QoS) rules. The penalty, which stood at Rs 50,000 earlier, will increase to Rs 10 lakhs in case of repeat violation of the benchmarks for two consecutive quarters. 
 
Apart from penalty provision, TRAI has also revised the methodology for assessing call drops as it feels that the earlier method of averaging the call drop rate was acting as a cover for the underperforming towers.
 
Under the revised rules, to measure the 2% benchmark, TRAI will see if 90% of the base transceiver station (BTS) or mobile towers are working properly for 90% of the days. According to S K Gupta, TRAI’s acting secretary, for a period of 90 days, 90% of the mobile towers should work properly for at least 81 days. In the worst-case scenario, call drops should not exceed beyond 3% for a majority of towers in a given circle. TRAI usually takes the data for QoS norms every three months.