The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) on Friday has issued amendment to compensate consumers for call drops with effect from January 1.

However, the daily (24 hours) cap will be limited to only three call drops, the sector regulator said in a statement.

Simply put, in a given day a consumer will be compensated for up to three call drops even if the frequency of drops is higher.

BusinessLine had reported on Thursday that TRAI will come out with the notification on Friday.

However, the telecom operators may go against the amendment and are planning to move TDSAT over the TRAI's regulation.

But, TRAI is of the view that in the past one year, consumers at various fora have raised the issue of call drops.

TRAI had also issued a consultation paper (CP) on 'compensation to the consumers in the event of dropped calls'. The stakeholders were to submit written comments on the issues raised in the CP by September 19 and counter comments by September 28.

An open house discussion was also held on October 1 to further discuss the matter.

"After careful examination of the comments received from the stakeholders and further analysis, TRAI decided to put in place a mechanism to provide relief to consumers by mandating the following to every originating service provider providing mobile services for each call drop within its network," TRAI said.

TRAI is of the view that the mandated regime would provide relief to the consumers from the issue of call drops to some extent and spur the providers to improve the quality of service.

Telecom Minister, Ravi Shankar Prasad has also praised the regulation and said that such decision made by TRAI is a welcome step for the benefit of consumers.

"It will go a long way in addressing the consumers. My office is been monitoring it and I hope the services get improved at the earliest and call drops become a thing of past so that the penalty provision of the regulations will not be required to be invoked," Prasad told reporters.

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