Jio and Airtel say they want to fix the problem of call drops, but will they?
The telecom sector in India has been on a roller coaster ride for the better part of two years now. After starting operations in November 2016, Reliance Jio, with its aggressive pricing strategy, caused a major shake-up and within a matter of weeks initiated a bloodbath that from the outside looked all favourable for the crores of telecom subscribers in the country.
As it turns out, it was anything but favourable.
Despite providing the much-needed competition, Jio's entry came at a time which was preceded by a period of little to no investment in upgrading infrastructure - consequences of which started to manifest itself in the form of nagging issues like slow mobile data speeds and worse, call drops.
Phone bills being halved almost overnight even as call and data usage skyrocketed only added to the pressure on the existing networks which now found it even more difficult to maintain call quality. As a result, call drops and failures increased to a point where the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) had to intervene and threaten telecom operators of hefty fines if they failed to not improve the situation.
Need for increased investment
Reliance Jio's entry coming on the back of a massive investment of Rs 1.9 lakh crores helped the new entrant set up a state-of-the-art 4G VoLTE network, which, on paper at least, promised better call and data services.
Network issues, as well as Jio's entry, ensured that other incumbents which had previously been making record profits, one quarter after the other, were suddenly left with no choice, but to upgrade the infrastructure of their ageing networks. However, as it stands, the upgrade hasn't been as rapid as was expected - or needed. And to add to the problems, things have only gone from bad to worse because of the increased load on the existing platforms after the introduction of free calls and ultra-affordable data tariffs.
Case in point, the ever-increasing number of complaints about call drops and other network issues in the country's most densely populated regions. As per a report published in the Livemint, two of the biggest cities in the country, Delhi and Mumbai, and its two most populous states - Uttar Pradesh and Bihar - face the worst of the call quality issues.
Explaining the issue, telecom secretary Aruna Sundararajan said, "Overall, if we look at the country, many parts of the south, particularly Tamil Nadu, Chennai, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana... the complaints are about 30 per cent-33 per cent (of the total number of complaints). Whereas the worst affected areas seem to be Delhi, Mumbai, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. We have asked them to specifically take measures for these places where the call drops are the worst, and put those on a fast track."
Will there be an end to our troubles?
Most likely, yes.
After being rapped by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) over the issue of call drops, operators - including Reliance Jio and Airtel - have now promised to invest almost Rs 75,000 crore in setting up new towers, small cells, and upgrading infrastructure in the coming months.
Airtel, which has already invested Rs 16,000 crore on infrastructure, will be spending another Rs 24,000 crore, while Reliance Jio, that already has seen massive investment go into its network, will invest another 50,000 crore Rupees in installing one lakh towers in the coming fiscal.
These moves are expected to go a long way in improving the problem of call drops and call quality. Further, with existing operators such as Vodafone and Airtel also moving to the more stable 4G VoLTE platform, call drops are further expected to go down in the coming days.
In all honesty, the first steps towards this have already been taken. The wait now is for the transition to finish and bring an end to our troubles, which looks likely to be fixed in the coming months. Till then, all we can do is wait.