Question : Network Services in Far Flung Areas

(a) whether the mobile consumers in remote and small towns are not provided with uniform network facilities like the facilities available to mobile consumers in big cities while the former pay the same convenience fee to companies like rest of the consumers and if so, the details thereof;

(b) the details of the areas having constant poor mobile network services in the country, State/UT-wise including Uttarakhand and Bundelkhand region; and

(c) the steps being taken by the Government to ensure the availability of uniform communication facilities at the uniform tariff in the country?

MINISTER OF STATE FOR COMMUNICATIONS
(SHRI DEVUSINH CHAUHAN)

(a) to (c) The mobile consumers in remote and small towns are provided with uniform network facilities like the facilities available to mobile consumers in big cities. As per the Notice Inviting Application (NIA) for auction of spectrum and license given to Telecom Service Providers (TSPs), TSPs are required to fulfill minimum rollout obligations which include coverage of certain percentage of District Headquarters, Block Headquarters and rural SDCAs (Short Distance Charging Areas).

However, Department of Telecommunications (DoT) on the basis of a survey carried out in 2020, has estimated that around 5,72,551 out of 5,97,618 inhabited census villages of the country already have mobile coverage while 25,067 inhabited villages do not have mobile coverage. The Government is already addressing this issue of mobile coverage in uncovered villages in the country in a phased manner.

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 etc. Nearly 16.14 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 27thJuly 2021 (22.64 lakh BTS) across the country.

Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has been monitoring the performance of Telecom Service Providers (TSPs) against the benchmarks for various Quality of Service parameters laid down by TRAI by way of Quality of Service regulations issued from time to time, through Quarterly Performance Monitoring Reports (PMRs). The performance is assessed for a Licence Service Area (LSA) as a whole. Hence, Separate information on Quality of Services in a state or union territory or district is not available. Benchmarks for the network related parameters for the wireless services are same for all the LSAs including remote and small towns.

As per PMR for Cellular Mobile Telephone Services for the quarter ending December 2020 and quarter ending March 2021 of TRAI, all TSPs except M/s BSNL in one LSA (West Bengal) and M/s VIL in one LSA (Jammu & Kashmir) are complying to both Drop Call Rate (DCR) Spatial distribution measure (benchmark = 2%) & DCR Temporal distribution measure (benchmark = 3%) benchmarks.


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