Lok Sabha Question No. 1501 (UNSTARRED), answered on 2021-07-28
Subject: Problem of Call Drop
Ministry: COMMUNICATIONS
Asked by: Gopal Chinayya Shetty

## GOVERNMENT OF INDIA MINISTRY OF COMMUNICATIONS DEPARTMENT OF TELECOMMUNICATIONS

## LOK  SABHA UNSTARRED QUESTION NO. 1501 TO BE ANSWERED ON 28 th   JULY, 2021

## PROBLEM OF CALL DROP

## 1501.   SHRI GOPAL CHINNAYA SHETTY:

Will the Minister of COMMUNICATIONS be pleased to state:

(a) whether  the  Government  is  of  the  view  that  it  is  not  possible  to  check  the  call  drop problem completely and if so, the details thereof and the reasons therefor;

- (b) whether call drop problem is prevalent worldwide and if so, the details thereof;
- (c) whether the Government and TRAI are making every effort to check the call drop problem and bring it within the permissible limits with the help of telecom operators; and
- (d) if so, the details thereof?

## ANSWER

## MINISTER OF STATE FOR COMMUNICATIONS (SHRI DEVUSINH CHAUHAN)

(a) & (b) The  call  drop  in  a  mobile  network  can  happen  due  to  many  reasons  including characteristics of radio propagation for wireless communications, non-availability of sites due to acquisition problems etc. The occurrence of call drops is found to be common in mobile networks across the world with varying degree of occurrences. Telecom Service Providers (TSPs) in India are  required  to  ensure  that  the  call-drop  rate  in  their  mobile  networks  remain  within  the benchmarks laid down by Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI).

(c) & (d) 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, notification  of  Right  of  Way  Rules  2016,  making  available  government  land/buildings  for installations  of  towers  etc.  Nearly  16.12  lakh  additional  Base  Transceiver  Stations  (BTSs)  for 2G/3G/4G-LTE services have been added by TSPs during the period from  March,  2014  (6.49 lakh BTS) to 21 st July 2021 (22.62 lakh BTS) across the country.

Moreover,  in  order  to  obtain  direct  feedback  from  subscribers,  DoT  has  launched  an Interactive  Voice  Response  System  (IVRS)  wherein  around  5.02  crore  subscribers  have  been individually contacted since  December  2016,  out  of  which  67.52  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 1.60 lakh individual cases of call drops have been resolved so  far  and  around  7,592  BTSs  have  been  installed  by  the  TSPs  specifically  to  resolve  the  call drops issues received through IVRS.

Further, TRAI has been monitoring the performance of 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.

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.

Wherever  the  benchmark  is  not  met  by  service  provider,  the  explanation  of  the  service providers is called for and after considering the explanation submitted by service providers in this regard, TRAI imposes financial disincentives for non-compliance with the benchmark. Effective from  1st  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.

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