Leading telecom operators like Bharti Airtel, Vodafone and Reliance Communications have attracted maximum consumer complaints for poor service and call drops in the last three years and the trend continues, according to data shared by Telecom Minister Manoj Sinha in the Parliament.
"...regarding poor services and call drops received by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai)", nearly one-third complaints received in the first half of 2016 are against Airtel," according to the data shared by the Minister.
As per data available till June 30, 2016, Trai has received 9,720 complaints for poor services, put of which 3,257 complaints were made against Airtel, 2,130 against Vodafone, 1,526 against RCom and 997 against Idea Cellular, while complaints against other players were below 500..
Comparatively, Trai received 6,131 complaints against Airtel, 5,387 against Vodafone, 3,527 against RCom and 2,594 against Idea Cellular, 1,465 against Tata Teleservices and 1,444 against state-run telecom firm BSNL last year.
The number of complaints increased between 2014 and 2015 compared to trend seen between 2013 and 2014, as per the data shared in the Lok Sabha today.
Separately, Trai, in the network drive test report, said that most telecom operators except Airtel, Aircel and Tata Teleservices made the grade on the call drop test in Thiruvananthapuram.
The report said that Aircel 2G, Airtel 2G, DoCoMo 2G and Aircel 3G are not meeting the call drop rate benchmark of 2 per cent in Thiruvananthapuram. It added that Aircel, BSNL, DoCoMo (Tata Teleservices) and Reliance Communications were found using higher value of radio link timeout (RLT) parameter in the city, which is alleged to be a call drop masking technology.
"BSNL fails to meet the call drop rate benchmark of 2 per cent if RLT of more than 40 is considered. Call drop rate for Aircel and DoCoMo also increased," the regulator said.
Trai said that all operators have met the call set up success rate whereas 75 per cent of the networks are meeting call drop rate threshold.
The test was conducted in 12 cities in May-June, including Delhi, Mumbai, Chandigarh and Bhopal. In Kanpur and Lucknow, most telecom operators except BSNL and Reliance Communications have been found compliant.
