While the 5G network is being rolled out by Bharti Airtel (Airtel) and Reliance Jio (RJio), government and regulatory bodies are working on quality of services (QoS) norms, which will be released soon.

Sources from Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) and Department of Telecommunications (DoT) told businessline that they are working on QoS for 5G services, apart from telling telcos to improve the existing 4G services.

“We are in talks with the DoT and discussing on QoS for 5G services as it has been almost six months that the 5G services are being rolled out by the telecom operators across the country,” said a senior official at TRAI. Airtel and RJio launched 5G services in October, and have now covered more than 500 cities, both put together, across India.

TRAI has already announced to meet the telcos on March 27 to discuss on the development and implementation of Unsolicited Commercial Communication (UCC) detect solutions, as the regulator continues its offensive against pesky marketing calls and messages.

Senior officials at DoT have also confirmed about the quality norms for 5G services too, and said will sit along with TRAI to take it forward. “We will follow with TRAI on what they propose and will add our comments if required to the QoS for 5G services. The government is concerned about the quality of services...the latency, downlink/ uplink of data speeds, etc. The consumers should get the best services,” said a source at DoT.

According to them, UCC is a major source of inconvenience to the public and impinges on the privacy of individuals, and instances of several complaints in the past have also led to the regulator to bring new norms to curb such menaces.

To curb the menace, TRAI issued the Telecom Commercial Communications Customer Preference Regulations, 2018 (TCCCPR) on July 19, 2018, which put in place a framework for controlling pesky, unsolicited marketing calls and messages. The regulations came into force with effect from February 28, 2019.

With its implementation in a coregulatory manner with support from all Telecom Service Providers (TSPs), an ecosystem based on blockchain (Distributed Ledger Technology-DLT) has been created.

Further to Joint Committee of Regulators (JCOR) meeting held on February 23, this year under the chairmanship of PD Vaghela, Chairman TRAI, there has been a consistent focus and drive to implement UCC detect solutions in order to control UCC and spam on telecom networks, TRAI said.

Exploitation of the DLT platform to bring all access providers together on it with respect to UCC detect solutions will be a positive step in this direction during the meeting on March 27, it said.

The formulation of a framework for sharing of UCC data detected by access providers on DLT platform, strict action on Principal Entities and Registered Telemarketers (PEs and RTMs) for non-compliance of regulation, use of artificial intelligence/ machine learning (AI/ML) based anti-phishing system, implementation of RegTech solution on DLT platform for promotional voice calls, implementation of digital consent acquisition and updates of the ‘Regulatory Sandbox’ established for UCC Detect will be discussed in the meeting, it added.

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