Telcos unite to resist TRAI proposal on stiffer quality norms

Indian telecom operators rarely unite on different issues but one a recent proposal by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has generated rare unanimity among the telcos in coming together to oppose stiffer provisions for raising the quality of services, The Economic Times has reported.

This has pitted the telecom companies in direct confrontation with consumer rights groups who are eager to impose more accountability of the companies vis-à-vis quality of service. Predictably, telcos and telecom associations have come together to oppose the draft regulations floated by TRAI in August last year.

Incidentally, TRAI has asked the stakeholders to submit more comments by April 22.

The draft regulations floated by the regulator looked at updating the present Quality of Service (QoS) regulations. Significantly, these were notified during the 2G era and the proposed rules would factor in rapid changes in the sector that has accompanied the introduction of 4G and 5G technology.

The draft regulations that the TRAI wants to introduce feature reporting of QoS data on a monthly basis instead of the quarterly submission now. There would also be more stringent benchmarks for various services. Furthermore, the regulator wants to impose financial disincentives for wireline, wireless and broadband services which are not there right now.

The telecom companies have resisted the proposed shift to monthly reporting of QoS data. Their plea: it would pose enormous burden on them with no tangible end result to improve services.

On its part, the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) – a entity that represents Jio, Airtel and Vodafone Idea – even questioned the intent of the consultation held on April 9. It said that the quality of experience is critically dependent on the device ecosystem, apps, available spectrum and right-of-way questions and these have not been dealt in the proposed regulations.

“These are factors that need to be looked at by the authority to judge whether tightening of the norms as being proposed will actually change the experience level of the customers…whether more stringent regulations will practically achieve any end-results,” it said.

An official of Reliance Jio told the newspaper, “QoS improvement is a continuous process, and the industry and public has observed that issues of call drops when 4G networks were deployed in the country. Today, the situation has vastly improved, because the industry was allowed time to settle. In between, if the parameters or guidelines are changed, it will unsettle the industry.”

This Ambani-controlled firm was also against the penalties proposed in the draft regulations. It described them as too high.

The telecom companies assured that 5G industrial use-cases through network slicing will not have any adverse impact on consumer services.

TRAI has also proposed that the benchmark of network downtime would be revised to a cell level from a base station level. It would offer a granular view of network availability. Something similar has been proposed for broadband services. The LTE (4G) and 5G networks support low latency and the QoS benchmark for the latency parameter has been proposed to be less than 100 milliseconds from the present level of 250 milliseconds. The 250-millisecond norm was introduced in 2012 before the rollout of 4G networks in the country.