Call Drop Issue: A plan of action is needed, say experts

The government, TRAI and telcos need to agree on a plan of action and enforcement; otherwise consumer grievance won’t be addressed.Below is the verbatim transcript of Rajan Mathews and R Chandrashekhar's interview with Kritika Saxena on CNBC-TV18. Q:Let me ask you about Supreme Court’s specific observation about how the law needs to be taken up or rather the parliament must have a specific legislation on call drop and then it can’t be a notification, so it’s a big relief for you, but the fact is that call drop has not been addressed yet, that issue still remain. How can the parliament take this up in a legislative format? Mathews: First of all, I am not sure that we agree that the matter of call drop has not been addressed. I think Mr Sood has made it clear that all of our operators have made substantial investments and progress and if you look at the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI’s) quality of service requirements of 2-3 percent per cell tower you will find that all of our operators are principally in compliance with the quality of service now not to say that they are not pockets in various areas that require continuous attention, but that is something that we are very focussed on. The point that we have all along said is that looked this issue of penalties is not the right way to address the problem. The root problems are very clear to us and hopefully have been recognised and the Supreme Court order is about coverage, it’s about cell towers, it’s giving us right of way, it’s giving us affordable spectrum, those are the root causes and the Ministry of Telecom, the honourable minister is already working with us in opening up defence lands, opening up government buildings, helping us with the local municipalities to give us permissions to put up the towers. I think that’s the way to go forward. Q: Where can the consumers go, where can the customer go, I agree that the network is being worked upon, but the fact is that the call drop issue is a concern for customers across the board. I have seen a call drop of 3-4 today itself, I want to understand what can customers do to get some kind of redressal on this issue? Mathews: First of all I would like to say that it’s not an across the board problem again let’s go back to what the TRAI itself said are the quality of service standards. We clearly admit that there are pockets and regions for example, if you are in Delhi, Lutyen zone is going to be a continuous problem until such time as we can get our cell towers located there and this happens in just about all of the major urban areas that we are faced with, but let me get back to the issue of the consumers, first obviously the consumers have recourse with the operators, if that fails they can obviously go to the commission there are consumer redressal forum. Q: Let me ask you about the point that the Supreme Court made on the penalty being illegal. What according to you can be the legal way that the government can attain to ensure that the standard of service and the call drop issue is tackled and does not arise again? Chandrashekhar: The Supreme Court has called the order unreasonable, arbitrary and non-transparent. I don’t want to comment on either the Supreme Court order or the legality of what Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has said, but the fact is that there have been a lot of complaints with regard to call drop and the question that still remains is that while on one side may be there have been improvements in certain areas as has been pointed out, but where do actually the consumers go for redress, where do they go when they have a problem, how do they compensate themselves for failures in the quality of service. There may be many factors behind the problem, some of them have been mentioned by Rajan, it’s either lack of infrastructure or lack of spectrum or lack of adequate rules for sharing of the spectrum or lack of permissions for installing the towers or lack of adequate finance for the investment based on the quantum of investment made in spectrum, so there are lot of such factors but the important thing is that there has to be a plan of action on how these core issues or the root causes can be addressed and it has to be addressed in a time bound manner. Second thing is that there has to be some kind of a mandate on the quality of service and some methodology for enforcement between the TRAI, the government and the operators. This plan of action has to be agreed as well as the enforcement mechanism. Otherwise, I think the consumers will not have any redress.Q: You indicated that there has to be a mandate to ensure that customers needs are met and addressed and their issues are redressed. However what can that mandate be and how can the government take this up in a legislative manner? Chandrashekhar: There are certain factors which may be legitimate for example if a telecom operator does not get permissions to setup a tower then there is no way that the call drop can be prevented or that they would be addressed. The second thing is that in terms of any limitations in terms of the spectrum availability in certain pockets again this is an issue. These will therefore have to be addressed not at a very broad level but it will have to be gone into in depth and it has to be looked at area by area. I think the key question is once that has been done and once it is agreed that certain actions will have to be taken and it is quite clear that while many of these actions will rest with the telecom operators, some of the actions will have to be taken by the government or the telecom authorities who gives the permission. Some of them may be by the regulator in terms of laying down certain standards. Again the standards which are laid down, the problem which arises is that the standards aggregate this information and a certain level but that does not necessarily address the question of in certain areas the quality of service being poor. We are not talking necessarily about people who are mobile and who are moving from an area which has good coverage into some other area which has a poor coverage, that is a different kind of problem. But even while you are within a certain area the call dropping repeatedly, I think that certainly is something which needs to be addressed and nobody would argue that that is the kind of service we should be satisfied with.Q: Do you believe that in that case there is a case to make it a legislation at this point in time? Chandrashekhar: I think the first question is to actually have that plan of action which looks at all of these aspects. I certainly think that there are powers which are there with the government and with the TRAI, which could be exercised to enforce whatever plan is agreed upon, but to have a credible plan which everyone agree is doable within the existing constraints that is the critical first step. It’s not going to happen just by saying, “okay now, whether you have towers or not and whether you get permissions or not, you have to maintain this level of service” nor is it going to be sorted out by somebody saying, “okay this is the percentage which has been indicated and if you bulk all our calls together in all the areas then we are within that quality of service, within the licence area”. I think it has to be looked at, at about granular level also.