Call Drops: Telcos' Performance Has Improved in Benchmarks, Says Sinha

There has been a "consistent improvement" in performance of telecom service providers in meeting the benchmark for call drop parameters, as per regulator TRAI's quarterly reports between September 2015 and June 2016, the Rajya Sabha was informed on Friday.

"... it has been noticed from the quarterly performance monitoring reports of September 2015, December 2015, March 2016 and June 2016 available on TRAI website that there has been consistent improvement in the performance of service providers in meeting the benchmark for call drop parameters," Telecom Minister Manoj Sinha said in a written reply in the Rajya Sabha.

The telecom service providers have reported installation of 1.20 lakh additional Base Transceiver Stations (BTS) across the country between June 15, 2016 and September 30, 2016, and further plan to install 1.56 lakh BTS up to March 2017, the Minister pointed out.

Sinha further said that TRAI monitors the performance of service providers through quarterly performance monitoring reports.

For addressing call drop issue, TRAI also regularly undertakes drive tests of mobile networks in select cities, highways and railway routes to assess the quality of service and coverage around various areas and routes, and the results are shared with service providers for improving service quality and coverage in these identified areas.

In order to resolve the call drop issues, the Department of Telecom has also been undertaking various steps including meeting the Chairman and Managing Directors and CEOs of service providers to evaluate the performance against action plan for improving call drop scenario.

Other steps include making available plenty of spectrum resources in different bands for which auction process has recently concluded, wherein the telecom service providers have acquired 965 MHz of airwaves, he said.

Moreover the department is also facilitating necessary permissions in Central Government Buildings and Estate on sharable basis to roll out new sites in affected pockets.

Postal Department has issued guidelines on July 2016 for use of postal buildings for BTS installation, while Department of Defense has issued the detailed policy guidelines for mobile BTS installation in cantonment areas, he added.