The Hindu Business Line : `Unfair fare'

Towards this end, TRAI issued a consultation paper on billing issues some months ago, and it is seeking to elicit the opinion of telecom players and customers on issues of concern.

There are some common complaints that the TRAI paper has said it will issue directions on. One such is: a certain value-added-service is offered to the customer and if the customer does not want it, then he has to intimate his service provider so. This means the customer is burdened with telling the operator that he does not want a service that was dumped on him in the first place. (Usually the dumping happens with the operator offering the value-added service free for a limited period of time).

Another complaint is that international roaming charges are not properly provided by the operators even on their Web sites.

There are other issues on which TRAI sought the opinion of players and customers rather than straightaway saying that it would be issuing directions.

One is on the short messaging service, SMS. Can operators be allowed to charge for SMSes that do not get delivered? Not surprisingly most operators felt they should be allowed to charge.

According to them, their network is being used, and the network makes repeated attempts to send a message.

Consumer organisation VOICE, of course, held that these SMSes should not be charged. It is not the fault of the customer if a message does not go through even with repeated attempts.

And, what about calls that terminate after a few seconds of connecting, does the customer pay for the whole minute when his call may have got cut in five seconds?

TRAI felt that customers perhaps should not be charged for something that is due to the inefficiency of a network. The other option it suggested was that calls below five seconds not be charged at all since no meaningful conversation is likely to have happened anyway in that short period of time.

Predictably, most operators felt they must be allowed to charge even for five-second calls. Messages can easily be conveyed within that time, one of them said in its response to the consultation paper.

There are certain other issues that have not been talked about at all by TRAI but which many customers commonly experience. Forget an undelivered message, what about a message that arrives so late that it is no longer useful to the recipient? What if the message was telling the recipient to arrive for an appointment within half an hour, but was received two hours later? Of course, if there is no acknowledgement to the message, then the sender can presume that his message was not received. But (as happens in emergencies) when the acknowledgement too does not arrive within reasonable time, then two messages would be paid for and got wasted!

In mobile telephony, the system itself has these inherent `unfair aspects' but the effects on the customer are very minimal, say mobile telephony operators. If all this were to be taken into account by the billing system, it would get too complicated and burdensome for the operator who would have to factor these costs when charging tariffs.

But TRAI feels that when 6 per cent of mobile revenues come from SMS and call drop rates are 3 per cent, any unfair billing could work out to a significant amount.

TRAI has even got international consultants to study billing and metering systems in India. Our systems are as good as international ones, however, certain aspects and processes need standardisation, said their report.

Billing audits are also periodically conducted by TRAI. When TRAI finally comes out with its regulation on billing, it will, of course, be a fairer deal for the customer though several matters might still remain unaddressed.

kripram@thehindu.co.in

Picture by Bijoy Ghosh

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

Stories in this Section
P's not for party

`Unfair fare'

Waste no call

Drive Letter trouble

`Bond'ing with best practices

Of pizzas and pets, cars and ICE

Quiz

Cartoon