Trai survey fails to notice call drops, poor broadband

NEW DELHI: Frequent call drops and slow broadband connectivity may be a headache for most of the people in and around Delhi, but a survey commissioned by regulator Trai shows otherwise.

A latest survey by Trai revealed that mobile services in Delhi and surrounding areas like Noida, Faridabad and Ghaziabad remain above par for most of the top operators such as Airtel, Vodafone and Idea. However, the findings may not find resonance with majority of mobile subscribers.
Trai, which conducted the customer satisfaction survey through independent agencies, said quality of ser vice remains above the stipulated benchmark for major telecom companies although some like MTS, MTNL, Aircel and Tata Teleservices scored lower than the benchmark of 90% satisfaction.

Findings for cellular services were arrived at through interview of nearly 9,000 mobile subscribers of various operators. The parameters to measure the quality of survey included billing performance; network performance reliability and availability; maintainability; help services; and supplementary services.

The top three operators -Airtel, Vodafone and Idea -scored above par in most of the parameters, the survey showed. Trai officials were not available to comment.

In its recommendations on mobile services, the survey did say that there is a need to make them better.“Operators need to improve their network performance as there is high occurrence of call drop and this could be improved through investment in infrastructure facility as the number of subscribers with all operators is increasing every day ,“ the survey said. “The operators should do investment on skilled manpower in order to avoid the repeat complaints on the same issue.“

The survey also recommended that there should be further focus on areas like billing, help services, network and supplementary services. “With the tremendous growth in number of subscribers, the operators should introduce more effective customer care service.Stringent measures should be adopted for more effective mechanism to handle the concerns of their customers.“

On the issue of broadband, the survey found that Airtel and MTNL had overall rankings in excess of the benchmark of 85% satisfaction level. However, it found that Hathway and Spectranet were below the benchmark.

“Hathway and Spectranet -both need to improve their services. The accounting system related to charges should be made more transparent.They should also work on their help services, network performance and maintainability part,“ the survey said.“All the service providers should try to work on their supplementary services such as static fixed IP addresses, e-mail ids etc.“