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SC to telcos: Declare call drops never exceeded 2% threshold

The Trai regulation has mandated them to pay subscribers Re 1 for every call drop they experience on their network, subject to a cap of three call drops a day, starting from January 1, 2016.

spectrum regulation, spectrum liberalization, spectrum TRAI, trai specturm regulation, trai spectrum rates, train spectrum news, india news, tech news, technology news A bench headed by Justice Kurien Joseph while posting the matter for further hearing on March 15 asked the telcos to give an assurance.

The Supreme Court on Thursday asked the telecom operators to give an undertaking that call drops have never exceeded the 2 per cent threshold and no penalty was ever levied on them so far in this regard.

The Trai regulation has mandated them to pay subscribers Re 1 for every call drop they experience on their network, subject to a cap of three call drops a day, starting from January 1, 2016.

A bench headed by Justice Kurien Joseph while posting the matter for further hearing on March 15 asked the telcos to give an assurance.

Senior counsel Kapil Sibal, appearing for Cellular Operation Association of India (COAI), termed the impugned regulation, which prescribes payment of compensation for the very first call drop, as “unconstitutional” on the ground that the same was within the exempted limit of 2 per cent under the QoS Regulation.

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The issue is already covered by a prior and existing Quality of Service Regulations, 2009, he said, adding that it’s a known fact that call drops are beyond the control of the service providers and were happening due to a host of external consideration not attributable to them.

Even a Trai study also showed that 36 per cent call drops were “consumer-related”, he said, adding that the study hardly blames service providers with just about 7 per cent liability for “abnormal network response”, whereas over 50 per cent faults are due to radio waves’ failure.

According to Sibal, mobile phones from the grey market are largely responsible for call drops and service providers have no control over this as this also contributes to call drops.

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Besides, he also blamed paucity of airwaves (spectrum), large number of service providers and consumers, high-rises, damage to underground optical fibre lines due to digging and several other reasons for call drops. FE

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