The Hindu Business Line : Cellular subscriber base figures overestimated?

WITH close to two million new additions to the cellular subscriber base every month, the service providers, Department of Telecommunications (DoT) and the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) have expressed confidence in the rapid growth of this sector in the months to come.

There is, however, a growing apprehension that the estimates could be grossly overstated.

According to industry sources, these estimates of subscriber base that are being disseminated could be hamstrung by the different accounting norms being adopted by operators for their pre-paid customers. Faced with growing competition, the GSM operators are adopting different cut-off periods to check if the existing pre-paid card subscriber has left their service.

While some operators retain their customer in the log-books even 30 days after the due date of recharging the card, others wait for as much as 60 days.

The operators argue that the major reason for a longer grace period is to enable their customer to retain the same mobile number while overcoming temporary budget or other constraints. The sources, however, noted there was a growing pressure amongst them to retain these customers in the record books, and show inflated figures, despite the fact their customers have switched service providers.

This is particularly true of smaller operators, who are seeking to sell the operations to some of the bigger operators, and want a greater valuation for their company.

With close to 60 per cent of the GSM subscribers belonging to the pre-paid variety, the number of such "ghost" subscribers could be anyone's guess.

As regards the CDMA mobile operators, since they are yet to launch the pre-paid services, the story is altogether different. Having brought innovative schemes at affordable rates, they were able to capture a large chunk of the growing market.

They are now faced with an increasing number of defaulters, who have registered by giving wrong information details. While technically they have stopped using the services, the operators continue to retain them in the record books to show bloated subscriber figures to acquire new customers.

According to officials of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), while being aware of the possible discrepancies, there is very little that can be done. A close watch is being kept on the data that is being provided.

They pointed out that as per the present system of data compilation, the associations pass on the data to the authority every month, while the individual operators have to provide the required data on subscriber base and revenues individually on a quarterly basis. A comparison between both these estimates could throw up the discrepancies if any.

"In any case, the estimates that are being shown are just approximations and even if there is an overestimation, it would be marginal. No operator can continue to give fudged data on cellular subscribers regularly. In the long run, they will be found out and singled out by the association concerned," they said.

In this context, they pointed out that only recently the Authority had issued a directive to all operators to furnish information relating to service provision in specified formats periodically to the Authority.

"The Authority has decided to streamline and strengthen the monitoring of the performance of the service providers. They have to necessarily submit periodical reports and if the information is incomplete or incorrect it will be treated as violation of the directive, and strict action taken," they said.

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