Telcos approach DoT against call drop compensation

Having failed to convince the telecom regulator against its decision to impose a financial penalty on call drops, the telecom operators have now decided to knock on the telecom department's (DoT) door.But will or can the telecom department come to the rescue of the sector, considering telecom minister Ravishankar Parasad has already made it clear that he is not going to go back on this penalty.

Sources now say industry body Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) and the Association of Unified Telecom Service Providers of India (AUSPI) have requested for a meeting with telecom minister Ravishankar Prasad at the earliest. Sources say, the minister is expected to meet the industry and the top bosses of the telecom operators soon; either this week or early next week. Telcos have urged the telecom minister to review TRAI's regulation on call drop penalty. TRAI on its part has rubbished the telcos claim of financial impact. TRAI has refuted the claims by the mobile operators that coughing up compensation for call drops will have huge financial implications. The companies put the number at Rs 54,000 crore per year in compensations but TRAI puts the number at about Rs 200 crore per quarter.Telcos further claim that such penalty will only lead to increase in tariff. So clearly, this call drop war between the telcos and the TRAI will now perhaps need the intervention of DoT.

Last month TRAI had mandated that telcos from January1 should compensate users at the rate of Re one per call drop, with the ceiling of Rs three per day or three calls dropped.