To tighten the norms for 4G and 5G services, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) on Friday revised Standards of Quality of Service (QoS) for access (wireless/ wireline) and broadband service (wireless/ wireline), mandating service providers display technology (2G/3G/4G/5G) -wise mobile coverage maps on their websites to enable consumers to make informed decisions.
Also, the sector regulator has introduced provisions for financial penalties for all services to resolve QoS issues in a time-bound manner.
For instance, the financial disincentive (FD) for false reporting has also been changed to a graded basis. First false reporting will invite FD of ₹2 lakh per parameter instead of ₹10 lakh per parameter as per existing regulations. However, the same will increase to ₹5 lakh and ₹10 lakh for second and subsequent false reporting, respectively.
TRAI said that service providers have been mandated to publish QoS performance against prescribed parameters on their websites to bring transparency to QoS performance reporting.
Further, to enable timely redressal of network issues by the service providers, the QoS performance of mobile service shall now be monitored monthly instead of quarterly. However, for a smooth transition to monthly reporting, service providers have been given six months’ time from the effective date of the regulation, it said.
“Since the assessment period for access service (wireless) has been revised to a monthly basis, the FD amount has been kept at ₹1 lakh per parameter for the first contravention, whereas it varied from ₹1 lakh per parameter to ₹5 lakh per parameter in existing regulations with quarterly assessment period, TRAI said.
Further, as the assessment period for wireline access and broadband services has not been changed and remains quarterly, the FD of ₹1 lakh per parameter for the first contravention will be applicable.
“The FD amount for second and subsequent contraventions shall be applicable as per the regulations. FD amount in existing regulations was specified more than 12 years back and has not been revised during the intervening period, though the subscriber base and the telecom sector revenue have changed considerably,” it said.
TRAI said these regulations will be called the “Standards of Quality of Service of Access (Wireline and Wireless) and Broadband (Wireline and Wireless) Service Regulations, 2024” and will come into force on October 1, 2024.
TRAI said the new regulations will supersede three existing regulations: the Standards of QoS of Basic Telephone Service (Wireline) and Cellular Mobile Telephone Service Regulations, 2009; the QoS of Broadband Service Regulations, 2006; and the Standards of QoS for Wireless Data Services Regulations, 2012, amended from time to time.
It said that to gain insight into performance at a granular level, the Authority has decided to collect performance against certain parameters, such as network availability, call drop, and voice packet drop rate in uplink and downlink, on the Cell level.
“The Authority has decided to tighten the benchmarks for some key parameters like network availability (cumulative downtime and worst affected Cells due to downtime), call drop rate, packet drop rate, latency etc. in a graded manner over a timeframe of six months to two and half years to enable service providers to upgrade their networks, wherever needed,” it added.