Better telephony on its way? Telcos to face heavy penalties for poor service quality - ET
In what could mean fewer call drops and better telephony for India's over 900 million phone users, Indian telecoms regulator on Monday amended rules to penalise companies if they failed to meet quality of service standards for mobile and wired telephones.
Trai will implement 'financial disincentives' of Rs 50,000 per parameter for not meeting quality norms. The penalty would rise to Rs 1 lakh on consecutive defaults. For instance, if an operator does not limit its call drop rate to less than 2% within three months of these amendments coming into place, it will be liable for a fine of Rs 50,000, which will go up to Rs 1 lakh if the call drop rate is not contained in consecutive quarters.
Fixed line and mobile phone service providers would have to pay up Rs 10 lakh for not submitting a false compliance report and Rs 5,000 every day for not submitting compliance reports.
The regulator has sought comments from the industry.
Trai has changed these norms because it found that 'service providers were repeatedly not meeting quality of service benchmarks for some of the prescribed parameters' after monitoring quality of services over the quarters. The regulator said that there was no consistent improvement in spite of the measures it had taken.
In what could mean fewer call drops and better telephony for India's over 900 million phone users, Indian telecoms regulator on Monday amended rules to penalise companies if they failed to meet quality of service standards for mobile and wired telephones.
Trai will implement 'financial disincentives' of Rs 50,000 per parameter for not meeting quality norms. The penalty would rise to Rs 1 lakh on consecutive defaults. For instance, if an operator does not limit its call drop rate to less than 2% within three months of these amendments coming into place, it will be liable for a fine of Rs 50,000, which will go up to Rs 1 lakh if the call drop rate is not contained in consecutive quarters.
Fixed line and mobile phone service providers would have to pay up Rs 10 lakh for not submitting a false compliance report and Rs 5,000 every day for not submitting compliance reports.
The regulator has sought comments from the industry.
Trai has changed these norms because it found that 'service providers were repeatedly not meeting quality of service benchmarks for some of the prescribed parameters' after monitoring quality of services over the quarters. The regulator said that there was no consistent improvement in spite of the measures it had taken.