THE MINISTER OF STATE (IC) OF THE MINISTRY OF COMMUNICATIONS &
MINISTER OF STATE IN THE MINISTRY OF RAILWAYS
(SHRI MANOJ SINHA)
(a) to (f) Madam, the Telecom Service Providers (TSPs) had submitted to the Government that they plan to install more than one lakh new BTSs (Base Transceiver Stations) in the next 12 months, entailing an investment of about Rupees 20,000 crore, to rein in the call drop menace and give a fillip to the Digital India campaign.TheTSPs and the Government had agreed to a target of setting up 60,000 mobile BTSs within 100 days, and the TSPs have managed to set up 48,000 sites so far (i.e. between 10th June 2016 to 25th July 2016).Though the progress made by telecom companies leading to the first 100 days of the initial discussion has been satisfactory but it is important for the customers to be satisfied with the services.The Government and Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), both are seized of the network deficiency issue and pursuing with TSPs to take corrective measures to address the same.
For assessing the performance of service providers on call drop, both for 2G and 3G services, TRAI has laid down two parameters viz. (i) “call drop rate/Circuit Switch Voice drop rate (benchmark - less than or equal to 2%)”; and (ii) “worst affected cells having more than 3% Traffic Channel(TCH) drop/Circuit Switched Voice drop rate during Cell Bouncing Busy Hour(CBBH) (benchmark - less than or equal to 3%).”
As per the performance monitoring reports for the quarter ending December 2015 and March 2016, submitted by service providers for 2G & 3G Services, it is seen that for “call drop rate/Circuit Switch Voice drop rate (benchmark - less than or equal to 2%)” only Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) in North East Service area has not met the benchmark for this parameter in 2G services and number of instances of non-compliance has increased from 2 in December 2015 to 3 in March 2016 for 3G services, whereas for the parameter “worst affected cells having more than 3% TCH drop rate (benchmark - less than or equal to 3%)”, the instances of non-compliance have come down from 39 in December 2015 to 27 in March 2016 for 2G services and from 18 in December 2015 to 15 in March 2016 for 3G services for this parameter.
The TSPs based on assessment of their Network requirement plan for installation of mobile towers in their area of operation and for that purpose use tools specific to the technology deployed by them. As such, it may not be possible to mandate a uniform procedure for installation of mobile towers. Further, TRAI has been pursuing with service providers for improving Quality of Service and in this regard regular interactions are held with the service providers. TRAI has also engaged independent agencies for auditing and assessing the quality of service and surveys are being done regularly through independent agencies to assess the customer perception of service. The results of the audit and assessment of quality of service and surveys are published for the information of stakeholders, which also force the service providers to improve the quality of service. Wherever the quality of service benchmarks are not met, TRAI has also been imposing financial disincentives on service providers, for failure to comply with the benchmarks, in accordance with the provisions of the regulations. As such, presently, there is no plan to set up a national data base on call drop.
*************
Download PDF Files
