The Hindu Business Line : Stumped!

If your mobile call `drops' after 5 or 10 seconds for no fault of yours, you are still going to be charged for the full minute (or whatever pulse duration), and that is `evidence enough.'

If this happens very often, as it does, then your service provider's services are certainly disproportionate to what you are paying him.

Appalling as this is to the subscriber, it is still `omission,' in a sense. There are geographical `gaps,' which a service provider brings under the network only as it is viable for him to do so. A customer passing through such an area might face heavy `call drops', there may be a sudden spurt in calls being made on the network, and so on.

But there are other instances that cannot be explained away. Until some months ago, consumer organisations were receiving this frequent complaint from mobile customers: the customer would receive a text message that offered some value-added service, say a ring-tune or news service. The message would end with: "If you don't want the service, SMS `no' to number x, by six p.m. or Rs x will be deducted from your account towards this service."

Not only is the operator sending you an unsolicited service but the burden of refusal is on you as well. If you don't happen to see the above-mentioned message until after 6 p.m., the misfortune is completely yours.

"This is most unethical," says Jehangir Gai, well-known consumer activist, who is active with the Bombay Telephone Users Association. He names three very well-established mobile operators who used to do this.

"It used to be very common till recently but has reduced because of repeated complaints to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) which has warned operators against this." Of course, no one knows how much money operators had already managed to deduct from prepaid accounts through this `service' before they received their warning.

Some companies say they are very strict that such a service offer should not manage to slip into circulation. "We have a rule that there is nothing called a `customer by default'," says N.V. Subbarao, COO, Mumbai circle, Airtel. "The customer has to opt in for a service, not have the service thrust on him or her."

Abrupt termination

A month or two ago, when the regulator warned operators to get their prepaid customers' identity records in place, there was a most clumsy scramble to set the records straight, at any cost. J.R. Rattanani, for 10 years a subscriber with the same operator in Mumbai, discovered one morning that he could neither make nor receive calls although the connectivity bars on his handset showed in full.

There was no warning that his connection would be cut, failing submission of documents of identity, no notice period for the disconnection, and no intimation issued when the line was actually disconnected.

So, for all practical purposes, this customer thought that something had gone wrong rather than that his connection had been cut for a particular reason.

Rattanani was not told anything but happened to find out after he called his customer support centre that the disconnection was on account of his having to re-submit his documents.

(In several cases, it was not even the consumer's fault that his documents had to be resubmitted. The sales agent had simply not delivered them to the operator).

When operators can send 10 unsolicited SMSes in a day to sell a contest, why can't they send one saying your number will be disconnected if you don't submit your ID by a certain date? asks Rattanani.

Does not the operator have to compensate this subscriber for lost prepaid time and for other damages and inconveniences caused?

Telecom service providers, without exception, are not attending to consumer grievances, says Gai.

According to Achintya Mukherjee, who is on the Managing Committee of the Consumer Guidance Society of India, TRAI is not a very strong regulator and this is one reason why operators are not exactly on their toes when it comes to customers.

An example he gave (speaking at the Communications Convergence 2006 seminar of the Indian Merchants Chamber in Mumbai) is that of TRAI asking for separation of accounts by operators "who have not been very forthcoming about this" although they have to present it every quarter. "TRAI is not able to enforce even information supply," he says.

`Charter of services ignored'

The charter of telecom services, laid down by TRAI, is fairly ignored or observed only in the letter and not in spirit, he says.

According to the charter, service providers have to arrange a `human interface' whose name and identity are known during the process of disputes to the subscriber. One service provider, who actually had the name of such a nodal officer, required subscribers to make national long distance calls to get in touch with this person.

"The complainants could not reach him in any case because the telephone was never answered," says Mukherjee.

"TRAI has failed to use CAGs (consumer action groups) effectively. Most of the service problems for CAGs lies in the absence of redressal mechanisms," he says.

An indication of how bad the redressal systems can be, can be had from the increase in the number of cases going right up to the apex consumer court. Not so long ago, the court directed a pan-India CDMA operator to pay compensation to a customer in Haryana for selling her fixed wireless telephones that never worked because her area was not covered by the operator yet.

In this case, the operator had also refused to refund her deposit.

Very recently, this operator's biggest competitor was asked by the National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission to pay one of its customers Rs 1.67 lakh for not providing a new mobile number when one of its customers changed towns and for `false deposition' (for saying that it had provided a new number when it had not). As operators fan out in B and C circle areas, and announce with pride the list of small towns and villages that they have established themselves in, the problem could get worse. TRAI has already noted that when this happens, a further strengthening of consumer protection measures would be necessary in view of the new non-urban customers and their socio-economic backgrounds (meaning they will be more vulnerable as customers).

`Valid points on both sides'

"I would say there are valid points on both sides (customers and service providers)," says T.V. Ramachandran, Secretary General, of the Cellular Operators Association of India.

"As an industry body, we are anxious that we should remove the concerns of consumers at the earliest.

Companies do have good redressal mechanisms in place but there are still some valid customer concerns. The regulator TRAI has recognised this and has been suggesting the appointment of ombudsmen by the industry for this purpose."

`Out of our control'

About call drops and related service problems, telecom operators say that several matters are not within their control.

Says Sanjay Thakur, General Manager (Networks) TataTeleservices, Maharahstra: "Our networks are monitored in a rigorous and continuous manner for call drops, traffic and congestion. But there is so much roadwork happening that our fibre connectivity very often gets cut. In some areas, we are not allowed by the authorities to put up cell sites, there call drops could be very frequent. In other areas, where 8-10 hour power cuts are rampant, we have generator sets taking care of cell sites, but people do not have electricity for charging their phones."

Challenges and opportunity

"There is customer dissatisfaction but how big and how severe is the problem, one should ask," says Subbarao of Airtel, Mumbai circle.

"For telecom operators, 2 or 3 per cent of customers will be at any time facing problems because of technology updation or for so many other reasons but their complaints become widely known.

But there is the 98 per cent that has no complaints too. Yes there are gaps, and how they are to be plugged is an issue for telecom operators.

There are even customers who have unique demands (that could appear as complaints) and we see these new issues as an opportunity to create new services that did not exist earlier."

kripram@thehindu.co.in

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