explained | TRAI’s mechanism to stop call drops

the story So Far: Telecom Minister Ashwini Vaishnav was answering questions on call drops in the recently concluded second part of the budget session of Parliament. Narasaraopet (Andhra Pradesh) MP Sri Krishna Devarayulu Lavu and Karakat (Bihar) MP Mahabali Singh expressed concern over the incidents of call drops in the country. Separately, he asked the Telecom Minister whether the government had maintained any data on such incidents and the measures taken to mitigate them. Further, the Karakat MP asked the minister to apprise the House whether the government has proposed to revoke the licenses of telecom regulators failing to address the concerns. The Telecom Minister replied in the negative.

Shri Vaishnav informed the House about the specific monitoring mechanism for Telecom Service Providers (TSPs) of Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) for their Licensed Service Area (LSA). This is done by using Quarterly Performance Monitoring Reports (PMRs) submitted by the service providers against benchmarks for quality standards set by the regulator. The report for the quarter ended December 2021 said that in West Bengal LSAs, all TSPs except BSNL were in compliance with the benchmark.

Parameters to Assess TSP Performance

TRAI has prescribed two stringent parameters for estimating call drops in mobile networks, that is, Drop Call Rate (DCR) which relates to spatial distribution and temporal distribution. The mentioned norms are prescribed under the ‘Standards of Quality of Service of Basic Telephone Service (Wireline) and Cellular Mobile Telephone Services (Fifth Amendment) Regulations, 2017’.

Spatial distribution measures stipulate that at least 90% of the cellphones in the network must outperform the benchmark figure of 2% on at least 90% of the days.

The temporary delivery measure adhering to the benchmark figure of 3% requires that at least 97% of cellphones outperform the benchmark figure on at least 90% of the days.

In addition, the telecom regulator has an Interactive Voice Response System (IVRS) to receive direct response from customers on call drops. According to the Telecom Minister’s written reply tabled in the Lok Sabha, about 5.67 crore customers have made personal contact since December 2016. In addition, 73.61 lakh customers have participated in the survey. The feedback received is shared with the service providers for initiating corrective action in a time bound manner. In respect of complaints received through IVRS, 1.73 lakh individual cases of call drops have been resolved by the service providers and about 7,956 Base Transceiver Stations (BTS) have been established.

In simple terms, as explained by consulting firm Gartner, BTS sends and receives radio signals from mobile devices, converting them into digital signals that travel over the network to other terminals on the network or to be routed to the Internet. Is.

financial discouragement

TSPs should clarify their stand if they are not able to meet the benchmark figures. After considering the explanations, TRAI imposes financial disincentive for failure to comply with the same. The regulator introduced a revised graded financial incentive (FD) structure with respect to DCR parameters in 2017. The disincentives vary according to the deviation from the specified benchmark.

TRAI’s consultation paper submitted before the 2017 amendment mentions the suggestion of TSPs not to provide financial incentives for minor violations of key performance indicators (less than 10 to 15%). Service providers cited factors such as increased competition in the market with comparable price structures and quality of service being a major difference. Other factors causing financial disincentives include site restrictions, EMF issues, fiber cuts, cases of theft, border and fringe cells, non-availability of GSM spectrum and interference.

Additionally, it was noted that some services may not be able to maintain the quality of services due to high hilly terrain, remote areas and other factors. The paper argued that such instances should be considered on a case-to-case basis and cannot be the basis for any broad exemption.

Separately, there were also suggestions that the incentives would be in the best interest of the customers and would help in improving the quality of services. The paper argued, “They (TSP) were also of the opinion that there should be no financial disincentive if the quality-of-service benchmark is violated as choices are available to the consumer and market forces will improve the quality of service.” Will make sure.”

evaluation and improvement

The consultation paper suggested that benchmark evaluation should be technology-agnostic. All technologies deployed by a service provider in an area should be treated equally and evaluated as part of the same network.

For Radio Link Technologies (RLT), mentioned in the consultation paper, there may be cases in which the drop may be for a short period of time such as the user taking a lift or passing through a tunnel. TRAI noted that some service providers resorted to configuring them at a higher level affecting the drop call figures. The alleged ‘masking technology’ prevents calls from getting disconnected even if there is poor or no signal. The regulator said, “… the calls which were to be registered as call drops by the network, may be registered as call released (disconnected) by the user as the user is unable to issue the call due to poor quality of service. will initiate.” The revised measures ask service providers to keep a record of all BTSs in excess of the specified RLT value (greater than or equal to 48).

Telecom Minister Ashwini Vaishnav in his written reply in Lok Sabha on 6 April apprised the House of several policy initiatives taken to facilitate infrastructure development for delivery of quality services. These include allowing trade/sharing/liberalisation of spectrum, allowing sharing of passive and active infrastructure, providing government land/buildings for setting up towers, etc. He said that TSPs have installed about 16.82 lakh additional Base Transceiver Stations (BTS) for 2G/3G. /4G- LTE services between March 2014 and March 2022 across the country.

The reply mentioned that DoT holds meeting with TRAI and TSP from time to time on this issue. The last such meeting was held in January this year.