Telcos will compensate for call drops: HC upholds TRAI order

Delhi High Court on Monday upheld the order of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) making it mandatory for cellular operators to compensate subscribers for call drops. A division bench of Chief Justice G. Rohini and Justice Jayant Nath ordered that telecom operators would have to compensate subscribers for first three call drops. The court dismissed the plea of telecom operators for a stay on TRAI’s compensation policy, announced on October 16, 2015, for call drops under which a rupee will be credited to the mobile users’ account for every call drop (restricted to three per day) starting January 1, 2016. The TRAI had said the policy was made after consumers began getting regular call drops. In first quarter of 2015, about 25,787 crore outgoing call were made, out of which in 200 crore cases of call drops were encountered by consumers. This is 0.77 percent of all calls made, the TRAI had told the court, adding that service provider made about Rs.36,781 crore during the period. TRAI has been regularly conducting random call quality checks in various parts of the country. A test drive by the regulator done at the beginning of the year revealed that most of the telecom service providers did not meet the prescribed benchmark. The next test is most likely scheduled for April. IANS