Telcos urge TRAI to withdraw call drop compensation order

The Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) and Association of Unified Telecom Service Providers of India (AUSPI), that represents the telecom companies (telcos) have shot a five point letter to the  telecom regulator - The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) urging them to withdraw the compensation order for call drops.The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) on October 16 had asked the telcos to start compensating for call drops from January 1, 2016. TRAI said the telcos would have to compensate Re 1 for each call dropped and that the upper limit for call drop compensation will be capped at three per day per user.The telcos will be meeting the TRAI Chairman on October 29.According to telcos the order on call drops will hit both the consumers and the companies. The penalty could result in closure of networks and higher tariffs as the industry may have to shell out anywhere between Rs 10000 to Rs 54,000 crore annually.The telcos think the TRAI order on call drops is grossly unjust. According to them the licence agreement does not mandate telcos to have 100 percentage coverage in all licensed service areas (LSAs) and that the compensation cannot be provided for call drops in non-coverage areas. So they have requested TRAI to withdraw the order.Telcos also state that the measurement of signal strength is not in conformation with that of the department of telecom (DoT) rules and that the order does not state any of the reasoning for setting aside telecom operators suggestion with TRAI.Speaking on the above issue, Ashok Sud, AUSPI, Secretary General in an interview to CNBC-TV18’s Kritika Saxena said, “We are very hopeful that the TRAI will understand what we are trying to say and be open enough and try to speak about the issues. We sincerely hope that we do not have to take the last resort and move legally.”When asked what were the key reservations the Telecom operators have with respect to the call drop regulation and the call drop compensation clause introduced by TRAI, he said: “The biggest reservation is that physically, a network can never be designed for zero call drops because that is the law of physics and the coverage will be such that there will be call drops, number one. Number two, the licence conditions are such that they allow us to cover 50 percent or more of the district head quarters in a state.”"Within a district head quarters we are allowed to cover 90 percent or more which means technically in any city, there could be 10 percent areas which would not be covered and which would be particularly legitimate under the licence conditions. So, therefore if a call drops because the person walks into an area which does not have coverage, it cannot be called an illegitimate call drop. And therefore we should not be charged for it. So, that is our principle concern and principle case,” said Sud. They have also stated that how this could be misused by consumers, said Sud adding how the consumer could bend the system and beat the system by arranging in such a way that every day they get Rs three by way of compensation to call drops and the negative effects that would have not only on the bottomline for the operators but on the whole industry as such. “Other than that we have appealed to TRAI to work with us to help solve the issues like uniform policy around towers, right of way, concerns about electromagnetic field (EMF) radiation, getting permission to deploy sites on government lands and buildings availability of spectrum and so on. So, whereas we have requested them to withdraw the regulation, we are also urging them to work with us to solve these problems, he added. When asked would they be okay with a partial withdrawal because complete withdraw by TRAI looks difficult, Sud said, we really do not understand what a partial withdrawal would be. Ideally, what should happen is that TRAI should hold this order and speak with the industry, discuss with us, understand what are the issues and certainly with an open mind, we will talk to them and find a solution. Answering a query if TRAI did not consideration withdrawal of the order then would telcos look at a legal recourse on that matter, Sud said: “It is difficult to say at this point of time because no such decisions have been taken but we are very hopeful that TRAI will understand what we are trying to say and be open enough to sit with us and try to solve the issue. We sincerely hope that we do not have to take the last resort of going legal, he added.