The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India’s (TRAI) proposal to introduce special quality of service (QoS) guidelines for mobile services has not found favour amongst telecom operators. The operators feel their performance should not be monitored on the basis of parameters such as call drops, fault repair, refunds and billing complaints. Instead, it should be left to market forces to ensure QoS, the rationale being that operators will, perforce, have to put checks on their quality if they want to survive the stiff market competition.
According to the Association of Unified Telecom Service Providers of India (AUSPI), “In a competitive market, with telecom growth in abundance and technological evolution taking place, specifying special QoS norms should not form a part of regulation. There should be no regulation on QoS as the operators will automatically take care of the same to survive.” Moreover, since mobile number portability is slated to be introduced this year, such regulations would eventually have no relevance.
TRAI had initiated the process of specifying special norms as it received several complaints regarding the poor QoS offered by telecom operators. Call drops not only drastically lower service delivery but also have financial implications for consumers as users have to pay for the dropped calls anyway. One of the complaints even was that service delivery was sliding due to the financial gains involved. After TRAI’s independent verification of these complaints, the regulator wrote to the chief executive officers of all telecom service providers, directing them to take immediate and effective measures to reduce the number of calls dropped in their radio access networks.
TRAI also made the point that users must be given relevant information about QoS so that they can make an informed choice of service provider. The operators, while agreeing that the market works best when consumers are informed about the QoS standards they are entitled to, have opposed the idea of regulatory intervention to ensure QoS.
Notes T.V. Ramachandran, directorgeneral, Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI): “It is very unfair to suggest that operators are being lax. They are driven by competitive forces and are fully dedicated to improving service quality.”
The real issue, according to the operators, is that while subscriber growth in India is the highest in the world, each operator is given an average of just 7 MHz of spectrum. The global average, on the other hand, is more than three times at 22 MHz. Naturally, the lack of spectrum impacts service delivery.
The COAI, like AUSPI, feels that “in an ultra-competitive scenario, QoS is driven by market forces rather than by regulatory intervention. Even internationally, regulators mostly do not specify QoS parameters. Rather than introducing new or additional parameters for QoS, our aim should be to progressively reduce the number of parameters reported to TRAI.”
According to leading telecom operator Bharti Airtel, users in India enjoy very low tariffs in addition to having the choice of a large number of service providers. Market forces, therefore, “drive the cause of customer welfare”. In its response to TRAI’s proposal, Airtel notes that India’s mobile industry has surpassed the growth targets set by the government. This has happened through huge investments and aggressive rollout by mobile service providers, coupled with a supportive policy and regulatory environment. Thus, according to the operator, it is somewhat out of place that an industry which has set a global benchmark in terms of quality and affordability and has shown unprecedented growth and strong performance with regard to QoS, be charged financial disincentives for not complying with QoS regulations and violating TRAI’s directives on value-added services, termination of service, etc.
Reliance Communications shares the view that regulatory intervention is not required as telecom companies are already “pursuing marketing strategies designed to differentiate their brand from rival offerings based on dimensions of service quality such as superior network coverage, reliability and voice quality”.
According to Tata Teleservices, several factors that impact service quality like spectrum shortage, power supply and human resources, particularly in the rural areas, are not in the hands of operators. Regulation and regulatory intervention regarding QoS, therefore, should be kept to a minimum.
Notwithstanding the telecom operators’ opposition, there is a good chance that TRAI will go ahead and specify QoS norms to protect the interests of consumers. The final call on this has, however, yet to be taken.
