One of the major problems that mobile users in India face is call drops – the problem especially severe especially in rural areas and places with less mobile towers. Call drop complaints are amongst the highest compared to any other reason.
Thankfully the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has taken a note of this and carried out a three month pilot project to see the number of call drops that happen and how users can be compensated for same. The telecom department procured new devices that will monitor all mobile circles in the country. Post successful completion of this pilot, TRAI will roll-out this service across India, which is expected to happen from August.
According to TRAI, call drops have been consistently rising in India. Currently, around 14 percent of all calls get dropped which is 7 times higher than what is acceptable. The acceptable rate of call drops should be less than 2 percent.
The TRAI has defined various quality of service benchmarks that telecom operators need to adhere to while providing service to consumers. The QoS benchmarks include call drops, billing, complaint redressal time and time taken to attend customer calls, among others.
After implementation of this project, in the event a user faces a call drop, the caller will not be charged by the telecom operator and will credit back the balance in customer’s account.
In a consumer satisfaction survey published by TRAI last year, it has been seen that all telecom operators are getting lower satisfaction scores in one circle or the other. For example, India’s leading operator has a high consumer satisfaction rating in Kerala circle at 99.1 percent, however, they falter in in Punjab region where their satisfaction rating is only about 88.20 percent. Similarly, Aircel has high satisfaction levels in Assam at 99% percent, but when it comes to Punjab it is only 78%.
The survey showed that it is not just one or two operators, but all operators have issues in different circles. With this new call-drop refund policy coming in, the satisfaction scores should surely get a bump in coming months.