Lok Sabha Question No. 498 (STARRED), answered on 2022-04-06
Subject: Problem of Call Drop
Ministry: COMMUNICATIONS
Asked by: Mahabali Singh

## GOVERNMENT OF INDIA MINISTRY OF COMMUNICATIONS DEPARTMENT OF TELECOMMUNICATIONS

## LOK SABHA STARRED QUESTION NO. 498 TO BE ANSWERED ON 06 TH  APRIL, 2022

## PROBLEM OF CALL DROP

| †*498.                                                                              | SHRI MAHABALI SINGH:                                                                                                                |
|-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| (a)                                                                                 | whether the problem of call drop is unprecedented across the country;                                                               |
| (b) to                                                                              | if so, the details thereof along with the steps proposed to be taken by the Government address the said problem in near future; and |
| (c) case of                                                                         | whether the Government proposes to cancel the licenses of the telecom companies in their failure in resolving the said problem?     |
| ANSWER MINISTER OF RAILWAYS, COMMUNICATIONS& ELECTRONICS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY | ANSWER MINISTER OF RAILWAYS, COMMUNICATIONS& ELECTRONICS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY                                                 |
| (a) to (c) A statement is laid on the Table of the House.                           | (a) to (c) A statement is laid on the Table of the House.                                                                           |

## STATEMENT TO BE LAID ON THE TABLE OF LOK SABHA IN RESPECT OF PARTS (a) to (c) OF LOK SABHA STARRED QUESTION NO. 498 FOR 6 TH  APRIL, 2022 REGARDING 'PROBLEM OF CALL DROP'.

(a) & (b) Telecom  Regulatory  Authority  of  India  (TRAI)  has  been  monitoring  the performance of Telecom Service Providers (TSPs) for the License Service Area (LSA) as a whole,  through  Quarterly  Performance  Monitoring  Reports  (PMRs)  submitted  by  them against the benchmarks for various Quality of Service parameters laid down by TRAI. TSPs in India are required to ensure that the call drop rate in their mobile networks remains within the benchmarks laid down by TRAI.

TRAI has issued 'The Standards of Quality of Service of Basic Telephone Service (Wireline)  and  Cellular  Mobile  Telephone  Service  (Fifth  Amendment)  Regulations,  2017' effective  from  1st  October  2017.  These  Regulations  have  prescribed  two  revised  stringent parameters  for  assessing  call  drop  in  mobile  network,  viz.  Drop  Call  Rate  (DCR)  Spatial Distribution  measure  (benchmark  ≤  2%)  implies  that  at  least  90%  of  cells  in  the  network should  perform  better  than  specified  2%  benchmark  on  at  least  90%  of  days.  Similarly, another  new  parameter,  DCR  Temporal  Distribution  measure  (benchmark  ≤  3%)  will  give confidence  that  on  at  least  90%  of  days,  network  performed  better  than  specified  3% benchmark for at least 97% of the cells.

As per PMR for Cellular Mobile Telephone Services for the quarter ending December - 2021 of TRAI, all TSPs except M/s BSNL in one LSA (West Bengal) are complying to both the benchmarks related to Drop Call Rate (DCR).

Wherever the benchmark is not met by service provider, the explanation of TSPs is called  for.  After  considering  the  explanation  submitted  by  TSPs,  TRAI  imposes  financial disincentives  for  non-compliance  with  the  benchmark.  Effective  from  1 st October  2017, TRAI  has  introduced  a  revised  graded  Financial  Disincentives  (FD)  structure  for  DCR parameters, based on the extent to which a TSP's performance deviates from the specified DCR benchmark.

Moreover,  Department  of  Telecommunications  (DoT)  has  taken  several  policy initiatives  to  facilitate  infrastructure  growth  for  delivery  of  quality  services.  These  include permitting trading/sharing/ liberalisation of spectrum, permitting passive & active infrastructure  sharing,  making  government  land/buildings  available  for  installations  of towers, etc. Around 16.82 lakh additional Base Transceiver Stations (BTSs) for 2G/3G/4GLTE services have been added by TSPs during the period from March 2014 to March 2022 across the country.

Further,  in  order  to  obtain  direct  feedback  from  subscribers  on  call  drop,  DoT  has launched an Interactive Voice Response  System  (IVRS)  wherein  around  5.67  crore subscribers have been individually contacted since December 2016. Out of these, 73.61 lakh subscribers have participated in the survey. The feedback is shared with the TSPs for taking corrective actions in a time bound manner. As a result, about 1.73 lakh individual cases of call drops have been resolved so far and around 7,956 BTSs have been installed by the TSPs specifically to resolve the call drop issues received through IVRS.

- (c) There is no such proposal.

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