The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) plans to get tough with service providers who are violating the prescribed quality standards. With call-drops and poor voice quality endemic in mobile telephony, the regulator is considering moving courts to initiate action against operators over network congestion and poor service, according to TRAI chairman Pradip Baijal.

In recent months, all major cellular companies have been saying that Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd, the public sector behemoth, has been tardy in giving them more interconnect points so that services can be improved, but Baijal suspects that they may not be trying hard enough. “Our preliminary finding…is that they (cellular operators) have not made enough effort to force interconnections by negotiation and going to TDSAT (Telecom Disputes Settlement Appellate Tribunal).”

Responding to a query on the issue of national security raised by the defence ministry in the Orascom-Hutch case, Baijal said, “there’s a very thin line between shareholding and the capacity to influence policies”. He added that in the era of globalisation, “it’s a difficult issue to answer whether a shareholding in a company will influence the policies or whether MNCs coming into this country (while being in other countries as well) are an equal security hazard.” However, Baijal pointed out that he’s not an expert in dealing with security concerns. Egyptian company Orascom’s stake in Hutch is under government scrutiny as Orascom is a leading telecom player in Pakistan and Bangladesh as well.

Speaking on whether dealing with the incumbent is a bigger challenge than doing so with private operators, Baijal said it was always tougher to deal with the former. The incumbent (BSNL and MTNL) does not look at the challengers or the new private operators kindly, he said. In the UK also, incumbent BT (though it was privatised) gave hell to the system and the regulator, Baijal argued.

On his reported differences with communications minister Dayanidhi Maran over the issue of access deficit charge (ADC, which is paid on long-distance calls by cellular operators), Baijal said: “There’s no controversy….The minister is responsible for the performance of the sector….It was an intervention, not a controversy”. He added that “the minister is on a much higher pedestal because he’s responsible for performance in the sector”.

On the issue of network congestion, where Trai had recently sent show-cause notices to several operators, including Bharti, Reliance Infocomm, Tata Teleservices, BPL Mobile and Spice Communication, Baijal said that the regulator would file a complaint in court if these companies were found responsible for the poor state of interconnection and network congestion, leading to call drops.

TRAI, however, has powers only to file complaints in court. It is the court which will determine the penalty. According to the law, the fine for a first time transgression is Rs 1 lakh; the second time it is Rs 2 lakh. After that it’s Rs 2 lakh a day, Baijal pointed out. Meanwhile, the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) has sought another four weeks’ time to reply to the Trai show-cause. COAI has cited various hurdles on the way to preventing network congestion.

(http://dnaindia.com)