Telecom service providers commit to invest over Rs 74,000 crore in infrastructure upgradation to counter call drops

Aiming to arrest call drops, major **telecom service providers** (TSPs) have committed to invest over Rs 74,000 crore to upgrade and expand their infrastructure, Telecom Secretary Aruna Sundararajan said here on Tuesday. [caption id=“attachment_4263859” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Representational image.[/caption] Officials of major TSPs, including **Bharti Airtel** and **Reliance Jio** , on Tuesday met the secretary to discuss the call drop issue. Sundararajan said Airtel have invested Rs 16,000 crore on infrastructure and would be spending another Rs 24,000 crore. “Reliance Jio will invest Rs 50,000 crore in installing one lakh towers in the coming fiscal,” she said. Among various other issues, the TSPs have discussed the problem of non-availability of enough sites for installation of mobile towers. While presenting their analysis the TSPs informed the secretary that call drops have stabilised but other problems like fading of calls have gone up. It has increased “due to various issues, including some mobile phones not complying with required certification norms.” Sundararajan said, TSPs have informed that there is a new phenomenon in India where around 400 callers use a single mobile tower during same time compared to countries like China where the average user number is between 200-300. “They are now discussing with equipment makers to handle this kind of issue,” she added.