In the wake of the massive rollout of the 5G network, the telecom department has directed operators to work on call drops and other service quality-related issues and deliberated policy interventions to improve call quality.
Telecom service providers such as Bharti Airtel, Reliance Jio, and Vodafone Idea attended the meeting held by DoT recently. The meeting also discussed the issue of interference from illegal boosters and Right of Way (RoW) challenges. The operators made a detailed presentation to the Department of Telecom on current levels of service quality against stipulated benchmarks.
The telecom department is taking a long-term view of service quality-related matters. It has asked players to identify problem areas and make suggestions on policy interventions that could improve call connectivity. The Department of Telecom (DoT) is looking at legal frameworks and policy-level measures to ensure a better quality of service. The meeting also discussed locations that are facing specific problems, due to signal interference or other factors. Mobile customers have been irked by call drops and patchy networks for some time.
Communications Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw recently said that telecom service quality parameters could be made more stringent and tighter, possibly to the extent of 3-4 times.
“I will be requesting the Department (Telecom Department) to send a new consultation paper to TRAI for significantly increasing the quality of service parameters almost making 3X or 4X of what it is today, so whatever is the quality of service we are seeing, should now improve significantly,” Vaishnaw had said at an industry event on September 14.
DoT believes that policy interventions can help resolve some of the outstanding issues. Faster permissions for tower deployments can improve connectivity. Similarly, there are many instances where illegal boosters deployed by people, have caused interference with main towers and led to inconvenience for consumers at large, and those cases are also being identified for corrective action.
