Operators cheer Supreme Court ruling

While telecom companies rejoiced, consumers felt let down, and the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) and Communications and Information Technology Ministry just watched in the wake of the Supreme Court’s ruling on the call drop issue.

The call-drop penalty imposed by TRAI required mobile service providers to compensate consumers ₹1 for every call dropped, subject to a maximum of ₹3 a day.

However, the apex court’s decision called the regulation “ultra vires, arbitrary, unreasonable and non-transparent”.

Reacting to the development, a TRAI official said: “We will be able to comment only after reading the fineprint of the apex court decision.”

Minister for Communications and Information Technology Ravi Shankar Prasad said that “tariffs, standards of service come under the domain of TRAI” and that the Department of Telecom could not do much.

He, however, reiterated: “With regard to the larger issue of quality of service, while I acknowledge the mobile operators for bringing connectivity to every nook and corner of the country, they are equally responsible for giving good and satisfactory services.”

Prasad said the operators must identify the gap and reinforce it by investment.

“I am informed that since July last year, they have added around 90,000 plus sites in the country. They need to do more, and the government will continue to insist that they must fulfil this obligation.”

As far as the government is concerned, it has cleared all the pending issues — spectrum sharing, trading, liberalisation, and sharing of active and passive infrastructure, Prasad said, adding, “We have allowed sites on government buildings. We are even bringing sufficient quantity of spectrum in the upcoming auction.”

Rajeev Chandrasekhar, MP, who is also active on issues of net neutrality and internet society, said that the Supreme Court ruling is a blow to the efforts to create rights for cellular mobile and internet consumers.

“Consumers in India continue to be given short shrift on issues such as call quality, network quality etc. I have repeatedly asserted, starting way back in 2007, that TRAI has lacked the will, and indeed, the legal powers to enforce guidelines on telecom companies, in the interest of consumers,” he said. The TRAI Act, which was last amended in 2000, needs a review and amendments for stronger consumer protection, he said.

The Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) and the Association of Unified Service Providers of India (AUSPI) have welcomed the decision of the Supreme Court. The industry has made consistent and significant efforts to optimise networks, which have largely been completed, with more than two lakh sites being installed in the last 15 months for 2G and 3G services across the country. 

“The industry believes that these efforts will bring substantial conformity with TRAI’s QoS (quality of service) requirements. We are committed to working with TRAI on focusing on the core issues that impede the delivery of quality of service such as availability of affordable spectrum and timely permissions for locating our cell towers,” the industry lobbies said in a joint statement.

Meanwhile, analysts said that enforcing QoS beyond a certain point isn’t fruitful. Rather, operators should exhibit pro-activeness and improve the infrastructure by increasing cell density and taking measures.

“It is the responsibility of the entire eco-system, beyond the government and regulator — operators, network planners, designers and integrators, handset vendors, chip makers and app developers to contribute to overall network quality,” said Faisal Kawoosa, Lead Telecoms Analyst at CyberMedia Research.