High time to check call drops

"Govt has given telcos its own buildings to erect towers."

Call drops have been a major problem faced by users of mobile phone in the recent past. The problem has always been there but the number of call drops has doubled in the past one year, causing great inconvenience and monetary loss to customers. Calls are frequently cut, necessitating more number of calls. Signal disruption in certain areas is also part of the problem. The issue has been debated in public and discussed among the different stakeholders like the government, telecom operators, the Telecom Authority of India (Trai) and consumer organisations. But it shows no sign of resolution and there
is a blame game between the government and telcos. It has assumed such serious proportions that the prime minister intervened recently and gave a direction that it should be solved at the earliest. It has been reported that a 45 days deadline has been set. 

Both the government and telcos have to share the blame. One reason for call drops is the shortage of spectrum. The government did not make sufficient spectrum available to the telcos in the last auction because it wanted to realise more revenues from auction. Enough numbers of towers are not in place because people are unwilling to give land for it for fear of radiation. It has been clarified that the radiation fear is misplaced. The government has offered telcos its own buildings to erect towers. It has allowed spectrum sharing also. It says telcos have not made investments in infrastructure necessary to service the fast increase in the number of subscribers. It has rightly pointed out that the claims of investment made by the operators cannot be fully accepted because they have wrongly cited the expenditure on spectrum as infrastructure investment.

There are charges that telcos are not serious about solving the problem because dropped calls and the resultant repeated calls will help them earn more revenues. Telecom operators are being told by the Trai to disclose full information about their services and capacity so that customers can make a choice about the service provider. There is a view that the full extent of call drops is not being disclosed. It is also being felt that telcos are giving more importance to data traffic, which earns more revenue, at the expense of voice calls. There is a proposal to impose fines on telcos if the problem persists and there is no improvement in call quality. It is unlikely that the problem will be solved in 45 days, but urgent steps should be taken to eliminate call drops at the earliest.