Lok Sabha Question No. 1813 (UNSTARRED), answered on 2016-07-27
Subject: Call Drop Compensation
Ministry: COMMUNICATIONS
Asked by: A. ARUNMOZHITHEVAN, R. VANAROJA, SUKHBIR SINGH JAUNPURIA, KURUPPASSERY VARKEY THOMAS, M. K. RAGHAVAN, RAJENDRA AGRAWAL, PANKAJ CHOWDHARY, RANGASWAMY DHRUVANARAYANA, RAMEN DEKA, CHINTAMANI MALVIYA, KANWAR SINGH TANWAR, SANJAY HARIBHAU JADHAV, ABHIJIT MUKHERJEE, E. T. MOHAMMED BASHEER, RAVINDRA VISHWANATH GAIKWAD

## GOVERNMENT OF INDIA MINISTRY OF COMMUNICATIONS DEPARTMENT OF TELECOMMUNICATIONS

## LOK SABHA UNSTARRED QUESTION NO.1813 TO BE ANSWERED ON 27 TH  JULY, 2016

## CALL DROP COMPENSATION

1813.  SHRI A. ARUNMOZHITHEVAN:

SHRIMATI VANAROJA R.:

SHRI SUKHBIR SINGH JAUNAPURIA:

PROF. K.V. THOMAS:

SHRI M.K. RAGHAVAN:

SHRI RAJENDRA AGRAWAL:

SHRI PANKAJ CHAUDHARY:

SHRI R. DHRUVA NARAYANA:

SHRI RAMEN DEKA:

PROF. CHINTAMANI MALVIYA:

SHRI KANWAR SINGH TANWAR:

SHRI SANJAY HARIBHAU JADHAV:

SHRI ABHIJIT MUKHERJEE:

SHRI E.T. MOHAMMED BASHEER:

PROF. RAVINDRA VISHWANATH GAIKWAD:

Will the Minister of COMMUNICATIONS be pleased to state:

- (a) the details of call drop complaints received against Telecom Service Providers (TSPs) during the last three years and the current year, TSP, State and Year-wise;
- (b) the action taken by the Government in this regard, TSP-wise;
- (c) the present status of the proposal of compensating the consumer for call drop;
- (d) whether  the  Government  has  cleared  all  pending  issues  such  as  sharing, trading and liberation of spectrum for the improvement of services; and
- (e) if  so,  the details thereof and if not, the steps proposed to be taken up by the Government in this regard?

## ANSWER

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

- (a) to (c) The  details  of  call  drop  complaints  received  against  Telecom  Service Providers  (TSPs)  by  Telecom  Regulatory  Authority  of  India  (TRAI)  during  the  last three years and the current year, TSP-wise and State/ Service area-wise is enclosed as Annexure-I and Annexure-II respectively.

As  part  of  the  Audit  &  Assessment  of  Quality  of  Service,  TRAI  has  been undertaking  drive  tests  of  mobile  networks  through  independent  agencies  in  select cities throughout the country to assess network conditions in these cities. Wherever the  quality  of  service  benchmarks  are  not  met,  financial  disincentives  have  been imposed  on  service  providers,  for failure to  comply  with  the  benchmarks,  in accordance with the provisions of the regulations.

TRAI, through Telecom Consumers Protection (Ninth Amendment), 2015 dated 16.10.2015 had mandated that every originating  service  provider  providing  Cellular Mobile Telephone Service shall, for each call drop within its network-

- i) Credit the account of the calling consumer by one rupee;
2. ii) Provide  the  calling  consumer,  through  SMS  (Short  Message Service)  /USSD  (Unstructured  Supplementary  Service  Data) message,  within  four  hours  of  the  occurrence  of  call  drop,  the details of amount credited in his account; and
3. iii) In case of post-paid consumers, provide the details of the credit in the next bill.

The service providers and their association field a writ petition on 09.12.2015 in the Hon'ble Court of Delhi against the aforementioned regulations. The Hon'ble high Court of Delhi in judgement dated 29.02.2016 upheld the validity of the regulations.Subsequently, the service providers and their associations through special leave petitions  had  appealed  before  the  Hon'ble  Supreme  Court  against  the judgement of the Hon'ble High Court of Delhi. The Hon'ble Supreme Court has set aside the regulation vide order dated 11.05.2016.

(d) & (e) The guidelines on 'Sharing of Access Spectrum'and 'Trading of Access Spectrum'  have  been  issued  on  24.09.2015  and  12.10.2015  respectively.These guidelines  are  available  on  Department  of  Telecommunications  (DoT)  website: www.dot.gov.in.  Further,  the  guidelines  for  liberalization  of  administrative  allotted spectrum in 800 MHz and 1800 MHz bands have been issued on 05.11.2015, which is available on Wireless Planning and Coordination (WPC) wing's website: www.wpc.gov.in.

Contd…3/-

## Annexure - I

## Telecom Service Provider-wise details of complaints against call drop received in TRAI during the last three years and the current year.

| Service Provider   |   2013 |   2014 |   2015 |   2016 (upto 30.06.2016) |
|--------------------|--------|--------|--------|--------------------------|
| MTNL               |      0 |      0 |      7 |                        5 |
| BSNL               |      0 |     17 |     40 |                       11 |
| Aircel             |      0 |      4 |     22 |                        8 |
| Airtel             |      8 |     12 |    120 |                      135 |
| Loop Mobile        |      0 |      2 |      0 |                        0 |
| Idea               |     28 |      9 |     43 |                       46 |
| R-COMM             |      5 |     13 |     58 |                       40 |
| MTS                |      0 |      0 |      8 |                        0 |
| TTSL (TATA)        |      3 |      2 |     13 |                       12 |
| Uninor/Telenor     |      0 |      0 |      7 |                        4 |
| Vodafone           |      4 |     11 |    129 |                       76 |
| Videocon           |      0 |      0 |      3 |                        1 |
| TOTAL              |     48 |     70 |    450 |                      338 |

Contd…4/-

Annexure-II State/Service area-wise details of complaints against call drop received in TRAI

## during the last three years and the current year.

| State/ Service Area           |   2013 |   2014 |   2015 |   (2016) 1.1.16 to 30.6.16 |
|-------------------------------|--------|--------|--------|----------------------------|
| Andhra Pradesh                |     27 |      2 |      2 |                         11 |
| Punjab                        |      0 |      0 |     22 |                         13 |
| Bihar & Jharkhand             |      0 |      2 |     18 |                          9 |
| Delhi                         |      6 |     18 |    155 |                         94 |
| UP-East                       |      1 |      2 |      9 |                         15 |
| Gujarat                       |      0 |      5 |     34 |                         17 |
| Haryana                       |      0 |      1 |      7 |                          3 |
| Himachal Pradesh              |      0 |      1 |      0 |                          2 |
| Jammu & Kashmir               |      0 |      0 |      0 |                          0 |
| Kolkata                       |      0 |      8 |     24 |                         16 |
| Kerala                        |      0 |      1 |      5 |                          2 |
| Mumbai                        |      3 |     10 |     44 |                         40 |
| North East                    |      0 |      0 |      0 |                          2 |
| Orissa                        |      0 |      0 |      4 |                          0 |
| Rajasthan                     |      0 |      1 |     13 |                          7 |
| Assam                         |      0 |      0 |      3 |                          2 |
| Tamilnadu                     |      0 |      2 |      5 |                          1 |
| West Bengal                   |      0 |      0 |      6 |                         10 |
| UP-West & Uttarakhand         |      2 |      0 |      8 |                          5 |
| Karnataka                     |      1 |      2 |     28 |                         34 |
| Madhya Pradesh & Chhattisgarh |      2 |     10 |     21 |                         22 |
| Maharashtra                   |      3 |      2 |     32 |                         28 |
| Chennai                       |      1 |      2 |      8 |                          4 |
| Miscellaneous                 |      2 |      1 |      2 |                          1 |
| TOTAL                         |     48 |     70 |    450 |                        338 |

*********

(2016)