TRAI's one-rupee fix for call drops is no solution at all
On Friday, TRAI finally found a solution to the annoying problem of the call drops. Or that is what the telecom regulator of India suggested. After much consultation with many stakeholders, said the regulator, it has decided that levying a fine on the telecom companies for call drops would solve the issue. From January 1, it said, the telecom companies in India would pay Re 1 (limited to Rs 3 per day) to consumers for a dropped call.
Sounds fair? May be. But it is no solution at all. It is going to make zero difference. Neither will the problem of call drops be solved this way nor is it going to affect telecom operators in any significant way.
On the face value, the TRAI announcement looks significant. But the devil is in the detail. The fine, and the mechanism to impose it, that TRAI is proposing is not feasible. It won't work. There are two reasons:
What is a call drop?
There is no specific definition of a call drop. TRAI says "call drop means a voice call which, after being successfully established, is interrupted prior to its normal completion". The problem is with the "normal". What is normal? Who is going to establish that the call was interrupted before normal completion. Consumers? They will say every call was interrupted before "normal completion". Telecom companies? They will say no call was interrupted before "normal completion". There is enough room here for telecom operator to avoid paying any fine. Even if there are call drops, they can totally ignore it and pay not a single paisa and they will be okay. If consumers claim compensation, they can easily ask consumers to prove that the call was dropped, contest the claim in court and just totally stall whatever the demand is.
Who is responsible?
According to TRAI, a telecom operator will be responsible only if "the cause of early termination (of the call) is within the network of the service provider". Now who is going to decide this. In case of a call drop, in most cases a telecom operator will have option to say the problem was with the network of the other operator. Again the burden of the proof is seemingly on the consumer and no consumer is going entangle himself or herself in the hassle of proving something for Rs 3 per day.
TRAI strikes again
By talking of this impossible-to-implement-fine, TRAI is just making some noise so that it can claim it has done its part even though in reality it is just letting the telecom companies off the hook. This is a totally lame proposal that doesn't affect telecom operators in any way and allows them to keep on doing what they are doing, which is trying to conduct business without investing in infrastructure.
The solution for call drops has to be an infrastructure-related solution. The telecom companies have to improve their coverage, invest money on streamlining their infrastructure. But that won't happen unless there is a real push from TRAI (and government), intended at solving the problem.
The conduct of TRAI in this instances is so different from what a regulator in the US or Europe would have done. The regulators there don't come up with these seemingly grand but actually stupid proposals. A regulator like the FCC in the US would have fined the erring telecom companies directly, levying a one-time fine and threatening more fines in case the they don't solve the issues.
For example, see how FCC acted against the AT&T in the case of throttled speeds in unlimited internet plans, which by the way is common in India. It asked the company to pay $100 million and stop its anti-consumer practices. It is true that the order has been challenged in the court but at least it shows that the regulator is serious about fixing the problem. In comparison, TRAI, instead of forcing telecom operator to mend their ways, is washing its hands off the issue by passing it on to consumers to prove that the call drops exist. In return consumers will get Rs 3 per day, that is if they are lucky!