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Hello... hello... sh**! [DNA : Daily News & Analysis (India)](DNA : Daily News & Analysis (India) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) "In no way, mobile operators make money out of call drops There is a simple technical reason behind call drop issue. When you are on a landline phone you are constantly on a wire band, whereas on mobile phones you are on a radio frequency connected to a tower. When you are constantly on move while calling on mobile, you get away from one tower and goes near another tower. During this switchover from one tower to another, your call gets transferred (which we call handover) to another tower, but if that tower is not ready to take the call for some technical reasons, the call is dropped. I agree that the consumers face inconvenience because they have to make another call. In no way mobile operators make money out of call drops, in fact they face losses. When the call is not handed over from one tower to another, it is revenue loss for mobile operators. For the call drop problem there are various parameters laid down by TRAI for the mobile operators. TRAI has given limitations on call drops to mobile operators. -Arvind Wadnerkar, general manager (mobile), BSNL""If a person gives missed call, the company makes a loss There are no specific complaints of call drops. In case of such a problem, users should specify the area so that the issue can be rectified and reasons ascertained. The users can shift to per second billing plans if they are losing money on the per-minute-billing-system. I won't say the operators make accidental monetary gain out of call drops. In fact, for every call made through a network, there is a fixed cost involved. If a person gives a missed call, he is not paying anything, but for the operator, since some amount of spectrum is involved, the company makes a loss out of that too. -Sudhir Gupta, secretary, TRAI""Consumer shouldn't bear the burden for technical glitch The call drop problem is very irritating and in the recent months it has increased considerably. When a call is dropped we have to call again and if we are not on a per-second-billing plan, we unnecessarily end up paying more for a call by calling again. In the last few months, my mobile bill has also increased by 30 per cent and there is no clarification from the mobile users why it has increased, despite my calls-per-month being almost the same. If there is a technical reason behind the call drop issue, then it is not a consumer's problem, why we have to bear the burden. I think under the reason of technical glitch, the mobile operators are minting money. At an individual level, the loss for a subscriber is meagre, so they do not bother to complain or take up the issue with TRAI. -Nilesh Salunkhe, mobile subscriber ""Multiple operators are using shared backbone infrastructure Indian mobile operators are making money out of call drops and the reasons are: Cost cutting measures happening within telecom operators. Lesser staff and non-availability of qualified manpower for the maintenance of towers. There is no law governing the quality aspects as far as the call drop is concerned. There are no performance enhancement criteria of existing networks. In this call-drop concept, the revenue increases because there is a bundled package call system like 100 calls free/300 calls free and so on. If the receiver and the caller keep on trying continuously and the call drops, the available free calls get exhausted and the company gets revenue out of it. Due to cut-throat competition among the telecom operators, the telecom tariff goes down and the cost as well as quality of calls also go down. The operator has to pay the high taxes to the government and in a few cases it is up to 50 per cent. With reducing profit margins, operators have no funds to update service with new technology. Due to reduction in revenue from voice calls, the cell towers are forced to shut down, resulting in further call drops. Another aspect of call drop issue is multiple operators using multiplex backbone, that is shared backbone infrastructure. Ideally, 4 to 5 operators should share the common platform, but in present conditions 13 operators are sharing the common infrastructure and no one takes the responsibility of maintenance. These shared infrastructure network, mostly outsourced, runs at the worst level due to the lower Opex sanctioned by the telecom operators and hence net throughput is falling down. Another important point is, most of the telecom technologies are imported from the foreign countries like China, for which no expertise is available with the Indian telecom professionals/engineers. -Milind Pande, project director, MIT School of Telecom Management & Researcher (Wireless Technology, Telecom Technology Transfer) Nobody has time to complain against call drop problem There is no doubt that the call drop issue has increased a lot and many subscribers are facing these problems. However, the problem is that nowadays people don't have time to complain about the call drop problem they are facing with their mobile service provider and many are oblivious to this problem. One can sit at home and register an online complaint to the TRAI if they face any issue with mobile operators, but mobile subscribers have no idea that they can complain directly to TRAI. The truth is nobody has time to go into complaining and do the follow-up for such a small problem. If you single out the call drop problem with one individual subscriber it is seen as a small issue, but collectively it is a big issue wherein the mobile operators are minting money. Earlier, we would get complaints about call drop problems from consumers, but now we don't receive any such complaints. We do receive consumer complaints regarding excess billing problems. If TRAI is not taking any action against such call drop complaints, then the consumers have no option but to approach the court, but then who has time. -Dnyanraj Santh, secretary, Grahak Hitvardhini""Rise in average revenue per user (ARPU) Bharti Airtel: Rs195 (2014); Rs185.30 (2013) Vodafone India: Rs193 from Rs 176 (2013) Idea Cellular: Rs169 (2013); Rs125 (2012) Reliance Communications: 11.6% increase (Rs125) Sistema Shyam Teleservcies (MTS): 2.8% increase (Rs97)" Credit:Rajesh Rao (c) 2014 @ 2014 DILIGENT MEDIA CORPORATION LTD. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED |