Prasad: will meet telecom players ‘very soon’ on call drop issue

Flooded with complaints from customers as well as some senior Parliamentarians on the problem of frequent ‘call drops’, the Minister for Communications and Information Technology, Ravi Shankar Prasad, said he will soon meet the telecom companies concerned.

“I have got lot of letters from MPs and customers about call drops in the last few days and to address such grievances, I have asked my Secretary to call all telecom players to discuss the issue (call drops),” Prasad told BusinessLine .

When asked how soon the meeting will be held, Prasad said ‘very soon’.

The issue of ‘call drops’ is being raised since the past few months wherein customers of all telecom operators, such as Bharti Airtel, Idea Cellular, Reliance Communications and Vodafone India, have complained about not getting through voice calls properly.

They have also complained about overbilling accusing the telecom operators of not rectifying the problem as well as not living up to the promise of providing a good communication network.

The companies did not offer any comment to queries sent by BusinessLine .

Meanwhile, some consumers have written to the Minister through MPs urging him to address the issue, but without any result so far. In one such letter, BJP parliamentarian Kirit Somaiya recently wrote a letter to Prasad, specifically mentioning Vodafone, alleging that the company “in a non-transparent way had strategically adopted this approach (call drops) to increase its earnings.” “The customer has to pay more due to the call drop, as many times for a talk of three minutes, the customer has to experience call drop of two times, resulting into payment of three times,” he wrote. The letter, accessed by BusinessLine , also alleges that in spite of repeated complaints, the company did not respond to customers in a “non-transparent” manner on overcharging and overbilling.

It is also routine practice that in 15 or 20 seconds a call gets dropped/disconnected, resulting triple payment/charges in Mumbai, Maharashtra and Delhi, Somiaya said, adding that MPs were also facing such problems.

However, the operators have often blamed call drops on lack of spectrum and hurdles in installing mobile towers in residential areas due to radiation issues. But the Minister, on several occasions, has made it clear that lack of spectrum is no excuse for not resolving the problem of frequent call drops.

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has also laid down Quality of Service standards for basic telephone service (wireline) and cellular mobile telephone service.

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