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New Delhi, Dec. 18 The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has proposed to tighten the quality of service norms for telecom companies. According to existing benchmarks, operators are supposed to keep the call drop rate to less than 3 per 100 calls. TRAI has proposed to change this to 2 per 100.

The regulator has suggested other changes in a consultation paper on reviewing the existing quality of service parameters. For example, it has proposed to monitor the billing and metering credibility for pre-paid subscribers. Currently, bills of post-paid subscribers are monitored. A suggestion has also been made to reduce the tome period for making refunds by operators from four weeks to one week.

“Any review of quality of service regulations should streamline the quality of service parameters monitoring, measurement and frameworks to the regulatory enforcement. There is also a case to consider the new inputs from the service provider. The review also aims to reduce or eliminate information which has lesser or lower order significance,” TRAI said.

The regulator said that it will start monitoring congestion levels for fixed line operators also. Currently, TRAI monitors congestion levels for mobile companies.

TRAI has been monitoring quality of service being offered by telecom players based in fixed benchmarks. Till now none of the operators have completely met the quality standards prescribed by the regulator. However, TRAI has not been able to enforce the quality norms since its powers to impose penalty has been challenged by the operators. There is a case pending with the telecom tribunal in this regard.

“Thus the key issue remains as to how the quality of service is to be ensured and what relief should be given to customers for poor quality of service or what other measures can be taken for enforcing regulations,” TRAI said.

More Stories on : Telecommunications | Standards & Benchmarks | Regulatory Bodies & Rulings

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