New Delhi: Amid an aggressive launch of 5G services in several cities across the country, the department of telecommunications (DoT) on Wednesday raised concerns over poor quality of services as well as call drops, and asked telecom sector regulator Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) to adhere the government’s stricter norms to check call drops and improve call quality.
The regulator is expected to meet telecom operators on Friday this week to review the current state of quality of service and measures to improve the consumer experience, a top DoT source said.
In a move to improve the present quality of service (QoS) at par with the global standards in India, the DoT recently consulted the public and other stakeholders for their comments on the quality of services. “After collecting their feedback through an interactive voice response system or IVRS, the department directed the regulator to immediately fix the issue of call drop, other call-related concerns and improve its quality as well,” the source said.
Several issues on the service quality have been in the spotlight over the last few months in the country. In December last year, even the DoT under the telecom ministry met leading operators to discuss rising instances of call drops and service quality-related matters, and deliberated on policy measures that can be considered for improving call quality, but somehow it failed in some way or the other.
It is also learnt that the situation on call drops is gradually worsening despite consistent efforts made by Trai and operators have not yielded any results so far. In order to resolve the long-pending issue with operators, the sector regulator has also summoned major telecom companies for a meeting on February 17 to review the current state of quality of service and measures to improve the consumer experience.
While broadly studying global best practices on QoS, the DoT is also learnt to have observed a few key performance indicators, which are very poor in quality.
Not only the DoT, but some surveys also cited the similar problems faced by the users.
A report by LocalCircles which was released in mid-January, said that 42 per cent of 5G subscribers surveyed report no improvement, while 19 per cent report deterioration in call connection and call drop issues after moving to 5G services.
