Telecom operators claim to have improved network and added more mobile towers after the government took on a tough stance with regard to the quality of service. But, little seems to have changed for users of the mobile phone when it comes to call drops in the national capital region.
Except Reliance Communications 2G, Idea 2G, Aircel 2G and Vodafone 3G, none of the telecom service providers meet the benchmark for service quality — less than two per cent dropped calls on their network — according to the latest drive test by telecom regulator TRAI.
“50 per cent 2G operators, 80 per cent 3G operators and all CDMA operators do not meet the call drop benchmark rate of 2 per cent. Most operators showed degradation in call drop rate compared to the previous TRAI audit of January 2016,” the regulator observed.
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Call drop rate was the highest for State-owned service provider MTNL’s 2G and 3G networks at 10.4% and 8.2%, respectively. This was followed by Idea 3G (6.2%), RCom CDMA (5.8%), RCom 3G (5.2%), Airtel 2G (3.3), Tata CDMA (3.3%), Vodafone 2G (2.8%), MTS CDMA (2.4%) and Airtel 3G (2.2%).
The drive test was carried out by Phistream Consulting, on behalf of TRAI, in Delhi and surrounding areas between May 3 and 6, covering an area of about 600 kms. A total of 12,300 calls were made for six 2G networks, five 3G networks and three CDMA networks covering eight operators, the report said.
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“The operators – Airtel, Vodafone, Reliance, Aircel and Idea need to further improve the call drop rate performance; the CDMA operators and MTNL need to improve across all parameters in order to offer acceptable levels of service,” the regulator added.
The regulator found Aircel to be using Radio Link Timeout (RLT) more than its peers to mask call drops. “In case of Aircel, it is noticed that the RLT value in most of the cells has increased. If RLT values are assumed to be 40 in case of Aircel, its present call drop rate of 2 per cent would increase to approximately 5.8 per cent,” the report said.
It further found that most operators failed to meet the Rx quality, which reflects the quality of voice, benchmark of 95 per cent — expect Idea 2G, Vodafone 2G, Idea 3G, RCom 3G and MTNL 3G.