India's telecom watchdog has asked mobile telephony operators to prevent network congestion and ensure calls by subscribers do not get disconnected abruptly.
Taking note of complaints regarding what are called "call drops", the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), has written to telecom operators to ensure deficiency in service does not inconvenience subscribers.
It said consumers also suffer monetarily because of call drops.
In India, calls are charged on a minimum of 60 seconds pulse rate. If a call gets disconnected, for instance after three seconds, the customer still has to pay for the entire minute.
“Independent verifications of the quality of service of cellular mobile telephone networks carried out by the authority in the past confirm the validity of complaints,” TRAI said in its letter.
“The authority sincerely expects that your enterprise take necessary steps to reduce the incidences of call drops in the network and also to provide to the authority by Feb 28, 2009 the measures taken to improve voice quality and drastic reduction in call drop rate,” it added.
Home Minister P Chidambaram had recently raised the issue of call drops with Bharti Airtel chairman Sunil Mittal during a function as to why he was experiencing constant disruptions while making or receiving calls on his mobile phone.
{{/usCountry}}Home Minister P Chidambaram had recently raised the issue of call drops with Bharti Airtel chairman Sunil Mittal during a function as to why he was experiencing constant disruptions while making or receiving calls on his mobile phone.
{{/usCountry}}“When will calls not drop in Lutyen's Delhi?” Chidambaram, who held the finance portfolio at that time, had asked Mittal at an awards function.