Call rate rose to 24.59% during April-June, says TRAI

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, November 24

Much against the claims of the telecom operators that they were making efforts to bring down the mobile call drops by improving infrastructure and taking other measures, country’s telecom sector watchdog TRAI has said the call drop rates had increased in the April to June quarter this year.

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) today said mobile operators had a call drop rate of as much as 24.59% for 2G services and 16.13% for 3G services in the April-June quarter, a clear indication of the worsening services.

TRAI said in the data collected, it had emerged that the performance had deteriorated and there was more than 3% of call drop rate.

The call drop rate had increased to 24.59% during the April-June period from 12.50% in January-March period for 2G services.

The situation was quite the same in 3G services although the call drop rate was not so high. It had, however, increased to 16.13% from 15.96% in the preceding quarter. TRAI also pointed out that the operators which were worst performers included Aircel, BSNL and Tata Teleservices.

TRAI parameters say the call drop rate should not be more than 2% and for the worst-affected areas, it should not be more than 3% and most of the operators were not achieving this benchmark.

The gross revenue for telecom operators decreased 0.30% for April-June quarter to Rs 65,030 crore from Rs 65,227 crore in the preceding quarter, while the adjusted gross revenue (AGR) increased 4.38% to Rs 47,134 crore for the reported period compared with Rs 45,158 crore in the preceding period.

The regulator said monthly average revenue per user (ARPU) for GSM services stood at Rs 126 while for CDMA, it was Rs 107.