Vodafone, one of the leading telecom operators in the country, which is soon to be merged with Idea Cellular has seen the highest number of complaints in the quarter ending December 2016.
According to the latest Telecom Services Performance Indicator Report by TRAI, the leading telecom operators are the ones to have received the maximum number of complaints during October-December 2016.
What Are The Quality of Service Norms?
As per the quality of service norms set by TRAI, the number of complaints received by a telecom operator should not exceed more than 0.1% of all bills generated by it in any given quarter in the given telecom circle.
As far as norms regarding call drops go, the telecom operators will have to shell out a penalty of up to Rs. 2 lakh should their call drops exceed 2% (3% during the peak hours) in a particular quarter in any telecom circle.
The Story So Far
India’s #1 telecom operator, Bharti Airtel, received most of its complaints from its 2G Prepaid users in the violation range of 0.11% to 0.12% against the set benchmarks in the telecom circles of Tamil Nadu and Chennai, Kolkata, Haryana, and J&K.
Idea Cellular received most of its complaints from the North-east telecom circles where the violation was in the range of 0.13% of all bills.
Vodafone was the only telecom operator during the October – December 2016 period of have received complaints regarding quality issues from its postpaid subscribers in Mumbai telecom circles, according to a PTI report.
It also received complaints in the range of 0.15% and 0.13% of all bills in the telecom circles of Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka respectively.
It was also found that Aircel was offering sub-par performance having complaints of call drops in most of its telecom circles. Aircel 2G exceeded the call drop limit in four of its telecom circles and reached 27.73% in the northeast telecom circle. Aircel even violated the peak hours limit of 3% in 11 of its 22 telecom circles.
Airtel, Sistema Shyam TeleServices (MTS), and RCom violated the call drop limit in one telecom circle each whereas BSNL, Tata Teleservices (CDMA), and Vodafone crossed the 3% peak hours limit in 1 telecom circle each. Telenor was found to be offering subpar performance in Bihar and UP East telecom circle.
There was one another parameter on which TRAI rated telecom operators and that was the deposits refund category, according to which all telecom operators have to refund 100% of the claimed deposit in the next 60 days.
RCom was the #1 offender and Tata Teleservices (CDMA) was the #2 offender in this list. Reliance Communications violated this norm across 20 of its telecom operators followed by Tata Teleservices breaching it in 6 telecom circles.
As this report makes it abundantly clear, all the telecom operators in India need to improve their networks significantly, as the future would be all about the network quality, as the tariff rates have already come down courtesy of Jio
