Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) conducted telecom consumer outreach programme here on Friday to create awareness among the telecom consumers about their rights and privileges.
Sibichen K Mathew, advisor, Kerala and Karnataka regions, explained the roles and functions of Regional Office and initiatives taken for telecom consumer protection. Robert Ravi, advisor, Quality of Service, TRAI, Delhi, explained about the rights and privileges of telecom consumers and the services to be provided by the service providers.
During the programme, TRAI regulations were highlighted, which inter alia included Mobile Number Portability (MNP), Unsolicited Commercial Communications (UCC), Complaint Redressal Mechanism and Tariff. In case of any complaint or service request, the subscriber has to call the customer care number of their respective service providers and register their complaint and the complaint centre will send SMS by giving details of docket no., date and time of complaint registration and time required for resolving the complaint.
If a consumer is not satisfied with the redressal of his complaint, he can approach Appellate Authority and the contact details of Appellate Authority would be available in the start-up kit, website of the service providers and their sales outlets.
The consumers can visit the portal - www.tccms.gov.in - which facilitates locating the consumer care number, general information number, contact details of the complaint centre and Appellate Authority of the service provider. Under MNP, the mobile user is eligible to make a porting request only after 90 days from the date of activation. To get UPC, consumers have to send - PORT(10 digit mobile no.) to 1900 and the UPC code is valid for 15 days. To curb Unwanted Commercial Communications, the consumer has to register his preference by sending SMS or call to 1909. Instructions have been issued recently for protection from deactivation due to non-usage. The mobile connections of prepaid consumers shall not be deactivated for any period of non-usage less than 90 days. The digitisation of cable TV network has already started covering four metro cities in the first phase. The second phase of digitisation covers 38 cities and consumers have to switch to digital cable TV before March 31, 2013.
Such digitalisation can provide various value added services including broadband for the consumers.
In Kerala all the urban areas will be digitised under phase III by September 30, 2014 and rural areas by December 31, 2014. Muralidhara K and Latha H C, senior research officers, Bangalore, also participated in the programme.