(a) whether the Government is of the view that it is not possible to check the call drop problem completely and if so, the details thereof and the reasons therefor;
(b) whether call drop problem is prevalent worldwide and if so, the details thereof;
(c) whether the Government and TRAI are making every effort to check the call drop problem and bring it within the permissible limits with the help of telecom operators; and
(d) if so, the details thereof?
MINISTER OF STATE FOR COMMUNICATIONS
(SHRI DEVUSINH CHAUHAN)
(a) & (b) The call drop in a mobile network can happen due to many reasons including characteristics of radio propagation for wireless communications, non-availability of sites due to acquisition problems etc. The occurrence of call drops is found to be common in mobile networks across the world with varying degree of occurrences. Telecom Service Providers (TSPs) in India are required to ensure that the call-drop rate in their mobile networks remain within the benchmarks laid down by Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI).
(c) & (d) Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has taken several policy initiatives to facilitate infrastructure growth for delivery of quality services. These include permitting trading/sharing/ liberalisation of spectrum, permitting passive & active infrastructure sharing, notification of Right of Way Rules 2016, making available government land/buildings for installations of towers etc. Nearly 16.12 lakh additional Base Transceiver Stations (BTSs) for 2G/3G/4G-LTE services have been added by TSPs during the period from March, 2014 (6.49 lakh BTS) to 21st July 2021 (22.62 lakh BTS) across the country.
Moreover, in order to obtain direct feedback from subscribers, DoT has launched an Interactive Voice Response System (IVRS) wherein around 5.02 crore subscribers have been individually contacted since December 2016, out of which 67.52 lakh subscribers have participated in the survey. The feedback is shared with the TSPs for taking corrective actions in a time bound manner. As a result, about 1.60 lakh individual cases of call drops have been resolved so far and around 7,592 BTSs have been installed by the TSPs specifically to resolve the call drops issues received through IVRS.
Further, TRAI has been monitoring the performance of TSPs for the License Service Area (LSA) as a whole, through Quarterly Performance Monitoring Reports (PMRs) submitted by them against the benchmarks for various Quality of Service parameters laid down by TRAI.
TRAI has issued “The Standards of Quality of Service of Basic Telephone Service (Wireline) and Cellular Mobile Telephone Service (Fifth Amendment) Regulations, 2017” effective from 1st October 2017. These Regulations have prescribed two revised stringent parameters for assessing call drop in mobile network, viz. Drop Call Rate (DCR) Spatial distribution measure (benchmark = 2%) implies that at-least 90% of Cells in the network should perform better than specified 2% benchmark on at-least 90% of days. Similarly, another new parameter, DCR Temporal distribution measure (benchmark = 3%) will give confidence that on at-least 90% of Days, network performed better than specified 3% benchmark for at-least 97% of the Cells.
Wherever the benchmark is not met by service provider, the explanation of the service providers is called for and after considering the explanation submitted by service providers in this regard, TRAI imposes financial disincentives for non-compliance with the benchmark. Effective from 1st October 2017, TRAI has introduced a revised graded Financial Disincentives (FD) structure for DCR parameters, based on the extent to which a TSP’s performance deviates from the specified DCR benchmark.
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