New Trai criteria to fix call drop

 To address the call drop menace, telecom regulator Trai is working towards introducing new benchmarks on the quality of mobile phone calls next month. 

The benchmarks will take into account India-specific problems. Besides, they will address issues such as the extent of call drops in a particular area and the duration of bad quality of service, a Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) official said.

“Though the global acceptable call drop benchmark is 2%, it is not applicable on India’s telecom sector as here issues may be different from other countries. The Trai is working with experts and telecom companies so that the new benchmarks are fixed taking local issues into account,” the official said.

Trai recently launched the MyCall app, which enables subscribers to rate the quality of a phone call. The android application will help mobile users rate call quality in real time, from one star to five stars — five being the highest rating.

Though the telecom operators claimed that call drops had come down drastically, a survey conducted by the Department of Telecom (DoT) a couple of months ago showed that a large number of mobile users were still facing the problem.

According to the DoT, of the 2,20,935 subscribers who participated in the survey, conducted via an automated call service between December 23, 2016, and February 28, 2017, as many as 1,38,072 (62.5%) reported call drops.

The DoT said it was taking a number of steps to address the issue, and that the service providers had installed more base transceiver stations across the country.