Almost 89% of mobile subscribers in India are experiencing call drops, despite increased network capacity, revealed by a recent survey by community social media platform LocalCircles.
Call Drops Issues Revealed By LocalCircles
Further talking about this survey, the company informed that this survey was conducted over the past three months, covering more than 32,000 people.
In their finding they observed that 38% of respondents witnessed more than a fifth of their calls dropped.
In response to this, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) said that they are investigating the issue.
Meantime, a significant majority of users continue to face disconnections.
Despite these issues, the mobile service providers (TSPs) including Jio, Airtel, and VI increased tariffs by 10-25% last month.
Increase In Wi-Fi Calls
The survey has witnessed the rise in Wi-Fi calls due to the persistent connectivity issues.
It appears that one in three respondents are making Wi-Fi calls with the use of platforms such as WhatsApp, FaceTime, Instagram, and Telegram due to call connectivity issues.
This is not the first time as there has been an increase in the number of people making Wi-Fi calls over the past two years which was highlighted in a similar survey conducted in 2022.
Now, the percentage of respondents forced to make data/Wi-Fi calls through OTT platforms less than 10% of the time has risen from 30% in 2022 to 41% this year.
Emergence Of New Trends Amid Call Drops
The issue with the call drops has started an all new trend in users where one in seven respondents now use data/Wi-FI to make calls “over 50% of the times,” revealed in LocalCircles’s survey.
There is an adverse effect on the percentage of those who “never” had to make internet calls as it has decreased from 18% in 2022 to just 9%.
Interestingly, the percentage of respondents making data/Wi-Fi calls “10-20% of the times” and “20-50% of the times” dropped from 28% and 24%, respectively, to 18%.
Besides this, it is not only in rural areas that call drop and mobile connection problems are faced as it is commonplace even in big metros.
With slight improvement, those who have experienced problems with call connections and call drops “in over 50%” of the cases there is a dip from 19% in 2022 to 17% of respondents this year.
The timing of this survey findings is also crucial as it comes amidst consumer dissatisfaction with the recent tariff hikes.
The telecoms have to face the many questions regarding the justification for higher prices when network quality remains poor.
It appears that the advancement in technology has not helped to improve mobile connectivity, TRAI noted.
