Submit plan for 100 days on call drops issue: Telecom Secy to companies

Two days after the call drops rate test data was released, Telecom Secretary J S Deepak on Friday said that he has asked the telecom companies for 100 days plan on call drops issue, Zee Business reported.

In the Hyderabad test, conducted by regulatory body TRAI, almost all the telecom companies failed to meet the benchmark. Today, the Secretary has asked the companies to prepare a plan chart on the call drops issue and assured that the industry will make investment in their network.

"We have done a lot of reforms in telecom sector in last 3-4 months. We have cleared 80,000 mobile sites in June. Industry will put 60,000 new sites in next three months and 1,50,000 sites will be optimizing by September", said Deepak.

According to the tests by Trai in Hyderabad, customers on Anil Ambani-led Reliance Communications network faced maximum call drops.

The report mentioned that call drops on Vodafone and Telenor was least among telecom companies, however, no other telecom operator could meet the 2% benchmark set by TRAI. Out of 14 networks tested, 11 networks did not fulfil the set benchmark.

He also mentioned that the quality of services by telecom companies still not satisfactory. To improve the quality, Deepak said that in three months 100 new mobile towers will be put up in Delhi. 

"Industry will make investment of Rs 12,000 crore on network. By laws of Delhi, towers are now allowed to be put up in residential areas", Deepak said.

Deepak also mentioned that Aadhar based E-KYC is in final stage and guidelines will be released shortly.

Before Hyderabad tests, Delhi test drive were conducted where except RCom and Vodafone, all telecom operators failed to meet call drop benchmark set by Trai, which is seeking more powers to impose penalty on erring firms.

Also, Trai has launched a website to publish results of its test drives. 

Last month, Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, mentioned that the country is going for one of the biggest spectrum auctions in the next two-three months. The next round of telecom spectrum auction is expected to mop up a whopping Rs.560,000 crore ($83 billion).