In a statement to TRAI yesterday, the telecom companies have requested for more time to get ready for the stricter regulations. Passed on August 18, these new regulations put a cap of up to Rs. 10 Lakh penalty per circle if the suggested call quality is not met by the operators. These regulations were to actually come into play from October 1.
New Regulations by TRAI
Introduced on August 18, the new regulations by TRAI introduced new methods to monitor call quality at the ground level and penalize the operators that do not fulfill the required quality. According to the new regulations, telcos will be fined between Rs. 1 lakh to 5 lakh if they fail to maintain quality standards in a particular circle for a quarter. If the operators cannot meet standard quality even in the next quarter, they will be penalized up to 1.5 times more. This penalty is capped at Rs. 10 lakh for third quarter violation. Introduction of Base Standard monitoring will also help TRAI get more accurate data about call quality being followed in a circle. Also, TRAI chairman, RS Sharma has given assurance that the telcos are not opposing the new regulations but just asking for more time to implement them. While these guidelines were to be implemented from October 1 this year, it may be delayed for a couple of weeks due to this request by the telecom operators. In the past year, we have seen some active decisions and moves from the Telecom regulator. TRAI has developed applications for user grievances, connection speed checking, and Spam Message Identifier (DND).
