India has 100 crore mobile phone subscribers, indeed a significant achievement considering we had less than 10 crore subscribers in 2005. Such hyper growth was possible thanks to the competitive mobile service offered by the telcos and availability of affordable phones. But then, quality of service provided by telcos has been the challenge.
Indian subscribers’ patience was tested during the past 12 months due to the incessant call drop menace. The national movement started by the television news channels, nicely followed-up by the public, ensured that the government started monitoring the call drop issue closely.
The management adage “What gets monitored, gets done” is perhaps apt in the current context as the Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad is relentlessly tracking the call drop issue.
The Telecom Minister has rightly stated that the responsibility of providing good service to the subscribers lies with the telecom operators. The government’s decision to impose a penalty from January has certainly triggered some action from the telcos. Over 29,000 towers have been added by the telecom operators across the country over the past few months. We are certainly experiencing an incremental improvement in the dropped calls.
It is quite intriguing that the telcos did not act proactively in fixing the vexing issue earlier. Also, why did neither the government nor the telecom regulator, TRAI, monitor the call drop issue with the same intensity in the past?
Call dropping is not unique to India. Malaysia handled this issue using penalties as a deterrent. Malaysia’s telecom regulator Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) imposed a penalty of $370,000 (about Rs 2.5 crore based on the current exchange rate) on the telcos. The impact was immediate — in the very next quarter call drops were down by over 30 per cent.
Due to the potential financial burden, the Indian telcos have sought quashing of TRAI’s ruling mandating the telcos to pay subscribers Rs 1 per call drop (capped at three per day). TRAI has blamed the lack of investment in infrastructure from the telcos for call drops. TRAI has also argued that the decision to impose a penalty has been taken in public interest.
The Delhi High Court verdict is expected soon, but some form of penalty for poor service is needed as it will act as a deterrent. Interestingly, Telenor, a service provider in India with presence in a few states is offering a compensatory call for every dropped call through its “call katega, muft call milega” initiative.
While 100 per cent call drop-free coverage across the country is practically impossible and not required as per TRAI regulation, equally hard is to comprehend that people will “create” call drops on purpose by getting into an escalator or some area with low network coverage.
The telcos have stepped up investment plans, with Airtel planning to spend Rs 60,000 crore through the “project leap”. It has also announced the launch of a website to show live status of network coverage and site expansion. The recent announcement of Idea Cellular buying spectrum from Videocon has set the ball rolling in terms of spectrum trading.
While all the actions from the government and the telcos must be lauded in getting the call drop issue addressed, India has a fundamental issue, with too many players providing mobile service.
The spectrum is a scarce resource and due to highly fragmented mobile telecom market, Indian telcos own just 1/5th of the spectrum compared to their peers in other countries. India has an average of 10-12 telcos offering mobile telephony compared to just three in China, while the global average is four or five.
In terms of network infrastructure, a recent report states that China invested $50 billion in its networks during the past year, while India’s spend was $5 billion.
Another report states that a telco in a metro city like Delhi carries 49 hours of voice traffic every day per mega hertz of spectrum per tower. This is at least five to eight times more compared to Shanghai or Singapore.
The problem gets aggravated when we look at the way mobile phone users are consuming data in the country, as data requires far more spectrum compared to voice. Data relates to everything from Internet browsing, accessing social networking sites to downloading audio and video files.
As per the International Telecommunications Union report, India has only 20 per cent individuals using Internet compared to over 50 per cent in other BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India China and South Africa) countries. However, this is fast changing as the data usage has gone up by 50 per cent in the past year and is poised for faster uptake.
This means the government needs to free-up additional spectrum, and also water down the stringent merger and acquisition guidelines.
If the poor data connection issue persists, it will not be surprising if we witness a call drop-like uproar this year. Public Wifi can be a potential solution that the telcos are trying to offload some of the mobile traffic onto the Wifi network. Some state governments have already laid out plans for providing free Wifi and the Indian railways’ plan to provide free wifi at select railway stations through a tie-up with Google would mean good news for the subscribers.
Facebook, trying to aggressively market its free Internet plan through the “free basics” campaign, has already triggered reactions from the proponents of net neutrality. The government’s stand on this will be keenly watched over the year. Net neutrality or not, the average phone user needs good quality connection, unrestricted access to Internet and more importantly at an affordable price. As more people use their mobile phones for Internet, the quality of experience will become critical.
In this context, TRAI should provide an easy-to-use mobile app to report any issue related to poor quality of experience. Maybe a rating system should be introduced, so that we know the best service provider in a given city or town. TRAI’s performance indicator report gets published with a lag of four to five months, but this has to be reduced significantly for effective action. The Digital India, smart city and e-governance plans will be largely mobile-oriented. Hence, it is all the more important that a good subscriber experience is ensured.
The call drop issue has certainly triggered actions on the ground from both the government and telcos. But, this needs to be sustained to keep the 100 crore subscriber base happy by focusing on quality of experience for both voice and data.
G Krishna Kumar is an ICT professional and columnist based in Bangalore.
Email: krishnak1@outlook.com