Final recommendations to be issued by mid-October
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New Delhi: Telecom regulator Trai said on Thursday that it will issue final recommendations by mid-October on compensation to be paid by mobile operators to their customers on call drops. This even as telecom secretary Rakesh Garg reportedly called up the owners of mobile firms including Sunil Mittal, Anil Ambani and Kumar Mangalam Birla to convey the Prime Minister’s concerns on the issue and asked them to take steps to check the problem.
“We have floated a paper relating to compensation and have sought comments from operators ... After which there will be an open house discussion. I expect that by October 10-15, we will give the final recommendations in this regard,” said Trai chairman R.S. Sharma. He had also met with CEOs of mobile operators on Wednesday and asked them to improve services or face stringent measures against them. He also said that within a couple of weeks, Trai will come out with an information paper that will bring out the quality of service of calls, specifically in Delhi and Mumbai.
Meanwhile, India Ratings and Research said, Spectrum trading announced by the government on Wednesday is likely to aid consolidation in the telecom sector and allow for the monetisation of assets from unutilised service areas, says India Ratings and Research (Ind-Ra). "The industry could see emergence of four pan-India players (Bharti Airtel Limited, Vodafone India Limited, Idea Cellular Ltd and Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited), assuming they will retain spectrum in all licensed service areas (LSAs) while other players may maintain strategic regional presence by trading their spectrum holding in some LSAs. Currently, there are more than six to seven operators holding spectrum in each of the LSA, of which two to three hold a miniscule market share,” it said.
Meanwhile, telecom secretary Mr Garg asked telecom operators to improve services, failing which telecom department will have to impose penalties under the licence conditions. According to reports Mr Garg called up Sunil Mittal of Bharti Airtel, Anil Ambani of Reliance Communications, Kumar Mangalam Birla of Idea Cellular and Vittorio Colao of Vodafone. He elaborated on the concerns raised by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the owners, asking them to optimise their networks.
Recently Mr Modi expressed “serious concern” over the issue of “call drops” and asked officials as to what steps were being taken to address this problem. Mr Modi had noted that call drops directly affects the common man. He had directed that steps be taken urgently to resolve the problem, and also to ensure that the problems in voice connectivity do not extend to data connectivity in the future.
( Source : deccan chronicle )
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