New service quality norms make Indian telcos jittery

Indian service providers expressed their disappointment and concern over new Quality of Services (QoS) norms introduced by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), which they allege will increase their expenses and compliance burden.

The Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) expressed concern over the regulations, which they believe "not only tighten benchmarks but also shift from quarterly to monthly reporting and site to cell level reporting in many cases." The new norms are scheduled to come into effect on October 1 later this year. COAI represents private telecom service providers Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea.

The New QoS Norms

When introduced, the new QoS regulation will introduce financial penalties for service providers and require network performance disclosures. Penalties for non-compliance of each QoS benchmark start at INR100,000 ($1,192) and increase to INR200,000 ($2,385) for the second offense and INR300,000 ($3,575) per benchmark for every subsequent offense.

In addition, a telco will face a fine of up to INR200,000 ($2,385) per benchmark if it submits a false compliance report, INR500,000 ($5963) for a second such offense and INR1 million ($11,925) for every subsequent offense. Further, service providers will be charged INR5,000 ($59.62) per day with a maximum penalty of INR1 million ($11,925) if they don’t submit compliance reports. TRAI has also introduced new parameters of jitter and packet drop rate.

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The new regulations stipulate quality monitoring will be done monthly instead of quarterly and give telcos six months to comply with the change. In addition, TRAI regulations "tighten the benchmarks for some parameters like network availability (cumulative downtime and worst affected cells due to downtime), call drop rate, packet drop rate, latency etc. in a graded manner over a time frame of six months to two and half years to enable service providers to upgrade their networks, wherever needed." The service providers will also be required to publish QoS performance, against prescribed parameters, on their websites.

The Indian telcos are understandably not gung-ho about the new norms. "These changes are expected to significantly increase the compliance as well as the cost burden on telecom operators, and without commensurate benefits for the customers," said Lt. Gen. Dr. Kochhar, director general at COAI in a press statement.

“While TRAI has tightened the QoS benchmarks over the years, the ground realities remain unchanged. TSPs still grapple with Right of Way (RoW) issues when acquiring permissions for infrastructure deployment in public and private land for the installation of cell towers and fiber-optic cables. The situation is further aggravated due to the additional requirement of street furniture for the 5G networks,” said Kochhar.

COAI further highlighted factors such as interference and illegal boosters that impact the network performance but are not under the operator’s control. "Moreover, interference from various sources, such as other wireless devices and electromagnetic interference, degrade signal quality and network performance. Further, illegal boosters and repeaters used by unauthorised agents, as well as the cases of theft of equipment are also external factors which, nevertheless, impact the QoS. Besides, frequent takedown of the overhead fiber by the authorities have a significant impact on QoS as well. TSPs have limited control over these external sources which adversely impact the Quality of Services," added Kochhar.

All three private telcos have recently hiked tariffs and the additional burden of penalties may push them to further increase the rates. At the same time, it is significant that TRAI has come up with these regulations after telcos increased rates, making it difficult for them to go for another hike now. The quality of communication networks is a growing concern in India, with frequent complaints about the number of call drops and low broadband speeds.