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Mobile service quality ok, claims ministry survey
Disagreeing on the findings of the survey, an official from the unit said on the condition of anonymity, “Call drops are more frequent now, especially during peak hours", reports Archana Khatri.
Is the quality of your mobile phone service any good?
A non-governmental organization (NGO), Consumer VOICE, has given a thumbs-up to all leading operators, but the vigilance wing of the Department of Telecommunications and the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) are not sure.
The Consumer VOICE survey, commissioned by the Consumer Affairs Ministry, carried out in Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai. Quizzed 4,750 respondents on more than 15 parameters to gauge the quality of service of 10 mobile telephony service providers.
On an average, all the service provides got a rating of seven on a scale of 10, said Asim Sanyal, Consumer VOICE’s chief operating officer.
Respondents were quizzed on parameters such as tariff plans, customer service, response time to complaints, connectivity and compliance to the Do-Not Call registry that bars unwanted sales calls.
“We are on the threshold of getting world-class mobile telephony services with low priced tariffs,” Sanyal told HT.
However, the Vigilance Telecom Monitoring Unit of the DoT, which also monitors quality of service of mobile telephony operators, has a different take on the matter.
Disagreeing on the findings of the survey, an official from the unit said on the condition of anonymity, “Call drops are more frequent now, especially during peak hours”
TRAI’s network congestion report for the months of October, November and December 2007 which was released on March 2008, also said that in a number of areas the degree of congestion between the operators “was alarming” even though there was marginal improvement on quarterly basis.
The response time at the customer service end is also much more than 60 seconds that has been mandated by the regulator, while a service provider takes not less than 48 hours to address a complaint.
The Consumer VOICE survey also said that consumers did not show any preference to the GSM or CDMA technology, and even if given a choice, the majority of the respondents did not want to change their existing service provider.
