Lok Sabha Question No. 3166 (UNSTARRED), answered on 2018-03-14
Subject: Mobile Network Problem and Poor Quality Services
Ministry: COMMUNICATIONS
Asked by: JITENDRA CHAUDHURY

## GOVERNMENT OF INDIA MINISTRY OF COMMUNICATIONS DEPARTMENT OF TELECOMMUNICATIONS

## LOK  SABHA UNSTARRED QUESTION NO. 3166 TO BE ANSWERED ON 14 th  MARCH, 2018

## MOBILE NETWORK PROBLEM AND POOR QUALITY SERVICES

3166. SHRI JITENDRA CHAUDHURY:

Will the Minister of COMMUNICATIONS be pleased to state:

- (a) whether the mobile network problems is reportedly increasing day by day and if so, the details thereof and the reasons therefor;
- (b) whether the companies call charges are very high but service quality is very poor and if so, the details thereof and the reasons therefor;
- (c) the steps taken by the Government to deal with the aforesaid matters;
- (d) the number of functional mobile towers in the country, State/UT-wise and the telecom company-wise; and
- (e) the availability of functional mobile towers per square kilometer?

## ANSWER

## THE MINISTER OF STATE (IC) OF THE MINISTRY OF COMMUNICATIONS & MINISTER OF STATE IN THE MINISTRY OF RAILWAYS (SHRI MANOJ SINHA)

- (a) The  Quality  of  Services  benchmarks  for  telecommunication  services  are  notified  by Telecom  Regulatory  Authority  of  India  (TRAI)  under  TRAI  Act,  1997  at  the  level  of  License Service Area (LSA) as a whole. These LSAs cover all States and Union Territories of India. The latest Performance Indicator Report for the quarter ending September 2017 indicates that most of the Telecom Service Providers (TSPs) comply to TRAI's Quality of Services benchmarks in majority of LSAs.

The non-compliance is mainly observed in case of M/s Aircel & M/s Dishnet Wireless Limited who have reported vide letter dated 22 nd  February 2018 that Aircel group is undergoing deep  financial  stress  due  to  various  reasons  which  has  resulted  in  closing  operations  in  six LSAs with effect from 31 st  January, 2018 and service-related disruptions in remaining LSAs.

Directions have been issued by TRAI to M/s Aircel & M/s Dishnet Wireless Limited on 27 th  February, 2018 to extend validity of Unique Porting Code (UPC) and to allow porting till 15 th April, 2018. This would facilitate subscribers to migrate to other TSPs of their choice.

- (b) As per the present tariff framework in the country, tariff for mobile telephone services is under forebearance except national roaming services and leased circuits. TSPs have flexibility to offer different tariff plans and schemes for mobile services with multiple combination of fixed charges, period of validity and usage charges. Different tariff combinations are being offered by TSPs taking into account several factors including input costs,  level  of competition  and  other commercial considerations.

As per data published by TRAI, the average Minutes of Usage (MOU) for voice services (per  subscriber  per  month)  was  374  in  September  2015  which  has  increased  to  437  in September 2017. Similarly,  data  usage  of  mobile  users  (per  subscriber  per  month)  was  120 Mega-Bytes  (MB)  in  September  2015  which  has  increased  to  1600  MB  in  September  2017. Despite the sharp increase in usage, the Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) has declined from Rs.  122/-  per  month  to  Rs.  84/-  per  month  for  2G-GSM,  3G  &  4G-LTE  services  in  the corresponding period.

(c) In order to facilitate improvement in Quality of Services and expansion of telecommunication  services,  the  Department  of  Telecommunications  has  initiated  a  series  of measures which includes following policy initiatives and development programs:

- (i) making available sufficient spectrum for mobile services including auction of 965 MHz in 2016.
- (ii) allowing Spectrum Sharing, Trading and liberalisation of administratively allocated spectrum as per guidelines to facilitate efficient utilisation.
- (iii) permitting sharing of active as well as passive infrastructure by the telecom service providers for achieving higher utilisation efficiency.
- (iv) notification  of  Indian Telegraph Right of Way Rules, 2016 in November 2016 for regulating underground infrastructure (optical fibre) and over-ground infrastructure (mobile towers).
- (v) periodic review of expansion of mobile networks and related improvements carried out by TSPs, leading to addition of around 6.66 lakh additional Base Transceiver Stations (BTS) on aggregate basis for 2G/3G/4G services during the period- July 2015 to February 2018. In addition, about 6.67 lakh BTS Cells have been rectified/ optimised by TSPs during July 2016 to December 2017.
- (vi)        facilitating  use  of  Government  estate  for  installation  of  mobile  towers  on  sharing basis by multiple TSPs.
- (vii) launching of Interactive Voice Response Service (IVRS) on call drop to get direct feedback from mobile subscribers and sharing the feedback with TSPs for taking remedial action.
- (d) A  total  of  approximately  4,63,159  mobile  towers  are  installed  in  the  country  as  on  1 st March 2018. These towers may be shared by multiple TSPs on case-to-case basis. LSA-wise count of mobile towers is placed at Annexure-I and LSA/TSP wise count of BTS is placed at Annexure-II.
- (e) As there are different types of technologies deployed for mobile networks using various radio frequency spectrum bands in the country, the number of BTS to be rolled out in any LSA are decided by TSPs based on propagation of radio waves, ever-changing demand pattern for voice  as  well  as  data  services  and  compliance  to  the  licensing  conditions  including  Roll  Out Obligations as well as Quality of Services Regulations notified by TRAI.

Mobile towers per square kilometer are  approx 0.15 (number of towers divided by 31.66 Lakh square KM). However, the number of towers in urban areas are located more closely due to  higher  number  of  subscribers  per  square  kilometer,  as  compared  to  sub-urban  and  rural areas.

Contd….3/-

## Annexure-I

## LSA Wise Total Tower Count  (as on 01-March-2018)

| Sr          | LSA                  |   Total |
|-------------|----------------------|---------|
| 1           | Andhra Pradesh       |   36213 |
| 2           | Assam                |   10386 |
| 3           | Bihar                |   32242 |
| 4           | Chennai              |   11157 |
| 5           | Delhi                |   21375 |
| 6           | Gujarat              |   26717 |
| 7           | Himachal Pradesh     |    4982 |
| 8           | Haryana              |   10270 |
| 9           | Jammu & Kashmir      |    8080 |
| 10          | Karnataka            |   28147 |
| 11          | Kolkata              |   10145 |
| 12          | Kerala               |   16015 |
| 13          | Mumbai               |   14883 |
| 14          | Maharashtra          |   36139 |
| 15          | Madhya Pradesh       |   30937 |
| 16          | North-East           |    6634 |
| 17          | Odisha               |   15682 |
| 18          | Punjab               |   18305 |
| 19          | Rajasthan            |   24725 |
| 20          | Tamil Nadu           |   27707 |
| 21          | Uttar Pradesh (East) |   29654 |
| 22          | Uttar Pradesh(West)  |   24386 |
| 23          | West Bengal          |   18378 |
| Grand Total | Grand Total          |  463159 |

Source: Tarang Sanchar Web-portal (as on 01.03.2018)

Note:

Towers may be shared by multiple TSPs.

LSA & TSP-wise Total BTS Count - 2G GSM/ 3G / 4G-LTE (as on 07-March-2018 )

| Sr                         | LSA                        | Aircel    | Airtel    | BSNL   | Idea    | R Jio   | MTNL   | Relian ce   |   Telenor | TTSL   |   Vodafon e |
|----------------------------|----------------------------|-----------|-----------|--------|---------|---------|--------|-------------|-----------|--------|-------------|
| 1                          | Andhra Pradesh             | 3274      | 34393     | 12464  | 24965   | 38687   | 0      | 0           |      5153 | 2688   |        7983 |
| 2                          | Assam                      | 3845      | 9477      | 2673   | 2358    | 9094    | 0      | 109         |       116 | 0      |        6997 |
| 3                          | Bihar                      | 4269      | 24515     | 5122   | 15551   | 27585   | 0      | 64          |      5092 | 842    |        8577 |
| 4                          | Chennai                    | 4300      | 11973     | 3345   | 4752    | 9440    | 0      | 0           |         0 | 1176   |        9471 |
| 5                          | Delhi                      | 4071      | 25088     | 0      | 10211   | 21941   | 956    | 2463        |         0 | 0      |       20780 |
| 6                          | Gujarat                    | 0         | 21449     | 7216   | 19398   | 27217   | 0      | 0           |      3847 | 2610   |       25785 |
| 7                          | Himachal Pradesh           | 0         | 4887      | 1886   | 2670    | 5028    | 0      | 94          |         0 | 5      |         867 |
| 8                          | Haryana                    | 0         | 9206      | 3640   | 8722    | 10142   | 0      | 0           |         0 | 1179   |        9378 |
| 9                          | Jammu & Kashmir            | 3167      | 8717      | 1821   | 2869    | 8188    | 0      | 395         |         0 | 0      |        1692 |
| 10                         | Karnataka                  | 4124      | 37482     | 8743   | 14009   | 27910   | 0      | 0           |         0 | 284    |       19924 |
| 11                         | Kolkata                    | 4243      | 9415      | 2460   | 4341    | 10765   | 0      | 1617        |         0 | 1386   |        6962 |
| 12                         | Kerala                     | 182       | 16809     | 9452   | 21273   | 18754   | 0      | 0           |         0 | 1454   |       16356 |
| 13                         | Mumbai                     | 1851      | 14734     | 0      | 6735    | 11569   | 847    | 2020        |         0 | 1699   |       14566 |
| 14                         | Maharashtr a               | 0         | 29810     | 10102  | 31577   | 33742   | 0      | 0           |      4525 | 5549   |       28733 |
| 15                         | Madhya Pradesh             | 0         | 22554     | 8320   | 25449   | 28562   | 0      | 275         |         0 | 3168   |        5825 |
| 16                         | North-East                 | 2640      | 6642      | 2446   | 1628    | 4756    | 0      | 108         |         0 | 0      |        3845 |
| 17                         | Odisha                     | 3329      | 12933     | 5388   | 3925    | 11983   | 0      | 123         |         0 | 1054   |        5633 |
| 18                         | Punjab                     | 1037      | 22185     | 5524   | 14627   | 20471   | 0      | 148         |         0 | 1685   |        9774 |
| 19                         | Rajasthan                  | 2565      | 23405     | 6778   | 11509   | 26775   | 0      | 454         |         0 | 1162   |       16500 |
| 20                         | Tamil Nadu                 | 9703      | 24907     | 8603   | 8087    | 25419   | 0      | 0           |         0 | 1581   |       17935 |
| 21                         | Uttar Pradesh (East)       | 2742      | 23791     | 8008   | 17226   | 27605   | 0      | 0           |      5700 | 201    |       25606 |
| 22                         | Uttar Pradesh (West)       | 0         | 18818     | 6011   | 19559   | 25341   | 0      | 0           |      5031 | 177    |       13923 |
| 23                         | West Bengal                | 3994      | 17403     | 3571   | 7072    | 17416   | 0      | 80          |         0 | 35     |       17557 |
| Total of each-             | Total of each-             | 59336     | 430593    | 12357  | 27851 3 | 44839 0 | 1803   | 7950        |      2946 | 27935  |       29466 |
| TSP Grand Total (all TSPs) | TSP Grand Total (all TSPs) | 17,02,226 | 17,02,226 |        | 3       |         |        |             |         4 |        |           9 |

Source: Tarang Sanchar Web-portal (as on 07.03.2018)

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