The Hindu Business Line : TRAI pulls up operators for misreporting data

THE Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has pulled up operators for misreporting revenues and for discrepancies in reporting minutes of usage every month.

TRAI said that the data furnished by the operators had many inconsistencies and details were missing.

In a communication to operators, TRAI said that despite discussing the issue with the service providers, the data given to the regulator was faulty.

"The data furnished by the operators do not appear to be consistent with the average quarterly data reported to the Economic Division of TRAI. It is observed that outgoing minutes reported by almost all the operators apparently is either missing some data items or they are finding difficulty in adequate understanding of the TRAI reporting proforma."

TRAI pointed out that though multiple operators have similar tariffs in the same circle, the data reported by each showed very wide variations. Even for operators providing services in multiple circles with similar average revenue per user and tariff plans, the reported data were quite different.

While telecom companies maintained that they were providing data as per requirements, industry sources said some operators may be under-reporting revenue and traffic to escape paying annual licence fee in the form of revenue share. They said that since operators have to pay between 6 per cent and 10 per cent of the annual revenues to the Government, companies might be misreporting the income.

For example, TRAI pointed out that the average revenue per subscribers reported by operators suggested that it was around Rs 450 and airtime revenue was about Rs 225. The average outgoing minutes of usage must be above 100 minutes. However, data furnished to TRAI suggests that the outgoing usage was less than 100 minutes.

More Stories on : Telecommunications | Regulatory Bodies & Rulings

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page

Stories in this Section
GAIL to invest Rs 750 cr on telecom infrastructure

TRAI pulls up operators for misreporting data

BSNL pre-paid connections

TN bid to expedite Nanguneri park

Public debate likely on taxation of BPO units

Datamatics net down 7 per cent

Polaris trims NEC project team

Sarnoff to ramp up Bangalore centre

Subex Q1 net up 26 pc

Kale bags Kuoni contract

Satyam partners OATSystems

Data Access to offload 30-35% equity — Scraps IPO plans on objections from SEBI

Wipro, eGain tie up