Airtel, Vodafone and Idea saw most billing complaints: TRAI
Users of telecom majors Airtel, Vodafone, and Idea filed the maximum billing complaints in the December quarter, according to TRAI. In terms of quality parameters, TRAI found the performance of Aircel below par for call drops in most telecom circles. The telecom regulator has set a penalty of up to ?2 lakh for poor mobile service, including call drops.
New Delhi, Apr 9 (PTI) Users of Airtel, Vodafone and Idea mobile services filed maximum billing complaints in October-December of 2016, as per the latest report of Trai. The complaints in the case of Bharti Airtel mostly came from 2G pre-paid subscribers in Tamil Nadu (including Chennai), Kolkata, Haryana and Jammu and Kashmir, where the benchmark violation ranged between 0.11 per cent and 0.12 per cent. According to quality of service norms, the complaint level should not be more than 0.1 per cent per 100 bills issued in one quarter. The maximum violations are found in the case of Vodafone, where 0.15 per cent and 0.13 per cent of bills were disputed by its users in Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka, respectively. Vodafone is the only company during the reported quarter whose post-paid customers in the Mumbai circle also raised a number of quality issues. Complaints against Idea in the north-east telecom circle pertained to 0.13 per cent of disputed bills. As for other quality parameters, Trai found performance of Aircel below par for call drops in most telecom circles. Trai has set a penalty of up to Rs 2 lakh for poor mobile service, including call drops. The penalty kicks in for more than 2 per cent call drops in a quarter in one telecom circle. According to the report, Aircels 2G network crossed this limit in four circles. The call drop rate on the Aircel network was as high as 27.73 in the north-east circle. Airtel, Sistema Shyam and Reliance Communications (GSM) service also overshot the call drop level in one circle each. During the peak hour, the rate is relaxed up to 3 per cent. Even in this category, the figure remained above this level for Aircel 2G in 11 out of the 22 telecom circles. 