The Hindu : Phone services fall short of TRAI norms

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Mar 06, 2003

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Phone services fall short of TRAI norms

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI MARCH 5. The quality of service offered by most cellular and basic phone companies falls short of the norms specified by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India.

Customers have rated cellular companies poorly on several parameters, including network performance, billing, reliability and availability and billing. The BSNL's constraints in meeting TRAI specifications are known because of its huge customer base and the use of overhead wires which are more prone to damage. But the inability of cellular firms to meet TRAI's quality specifications would come as a surprise to many. Cash rich metro based companies have more dissatisfied customers than State-level companies. The reason could be their alacrity in enrolling customers which is inversely proportionate to network capacity. There is regional disparity as well. Companies operating in the south and west are more customer-friendly than those in other parts of the country. Both basic and cellular companies are seen to be particularly lackadaisical in eastern India. However, most cellular service providers crossed or came close to the 90 per cent mark in terms of customers scores on satisfaction with service provision.

In the case of basic services, the findings `are not encouraging'. Despite visiting a large number of exchanges none of the operators was found to be meeting the important benchmark of providing new phones within the stipulated timelimit. Though the private operators are meeting some of the benchmarks, they are not entirely comparable with the BSNL because of the disparity and size of operations as well as the fact that they are mostly operating in urban areas where overhead wires (which cause maximum number of outdoor faults) are much less in the last mile. The BSNL met the prescribed norms in Andhra Pradesh, revealed the survey. Customer care promptness also remains an area of concern. This is the second survey conducted by TRAI. It was spread over 14 months from January 2002 to February 2003 and covered performance from October 2001 to September 2002.

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