According to the latest report published by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), Airtel, Vodafone, and Idea are among the ones to have received maximum billing complaints during October and December in 2016.
With 0.11% to 0.12% benchmark violation range, Bharti Airtel received most of its complaints from the 2G prepaid users in regions including Tamil Nadu along with Chennai, Kolkata, Haryana, and Jammu and Kashmir.
Vodafone, on the other hand, had received the maximum number of violation complaints with 0.15% and 0.13% of its bills from subscribers in Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka respectively.
Moreover, according to the PTI report, Vodafone is the only telco in the Oct-Dec 2016 time period to have received complaints regarding quality issues from its postpaid subscribers in Mumbai circle.
Just in case you are wondering, as per the quality of service norms, the number of complaints received by a telco should not exceed more than 0.1% per 100 bills issued in any given quarter.
In the case of Idea, most of its complaints came from its north-east circle with 0.13% of disputed bills. When other quality parameters were taken into consideration, TRAI found Aircel to be offering subpar performance with call drops in most of its circles.
Telcos offering poor mobile services including call drops will have to pay a penalty fee of up to Rs. 2 lakh according to the rules set by TRAI. Telcos will be penalized should they record over 2% call drops in a particular quarter in one of its circle.
Aircel’s 2G network, according to the report, has crossed the above limit in four of its circles with its call drop rate measuring as high as 27.73 in the north-east circle.
Similarly, Airtel, Sistema Shyam and Reliance Communications (GSM) have also crossed the set limit in one circle each.
In fact, even during the peak hours when the limit is relaxed up to 3%, the call drop rate for Aircel 2G was still over this level in 11 of its 22 telecom circles. BSNL, the state-owned telco along with Tata Teleservices (CDMA) and Vodafone have also failed on the 3% limit during peak hours in one circle each.
Telenor, on the other hand, was found offering subpar performance in Bihar and UP East circle.
When it comes to telcos which breached the deposits refund category, RCom was found to be the number one felon with Tata Teleservices standing next to it on the list. According to rules set by TRAI, telcos have to refund 100% of the claimed deposit in the next 60 days. RCom along with its subsidiary, however, have breached the norm across 20 circles in India. Whereas, Tata Teleservices broke the norm in six circles as per the report.
