Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) issued a Consultation Paper on ‘Review of Quality-of-Service Standards for Access Services (Wireless and Wireline) and Broadband (Wireless and Wireline) Services’ last month.
The regulator invited written comments from the stakeholders by 20th September 2023 and Counter Comments, if any by 5th October 2023. A request dated 6th September,2023 has been received from COAl (a Cellular Service Provider’s Association) for extension of time for
submission of comments on the ground that the paper is very comprehensive and detailed from all aspects of business i.e. Networks,
Customer Service, IT, Billing and record keeping, etc., and requires extensive deliberations and more time for submitting the comments.
TRAI has extended the last date of submission of written comments to 11th October 2023 and counter comments by 25th October 2023.
The TRAI Act, 1997 mandates the Authority to ensure the quality of Service to protect the interest of the consumers of telecommunication services. Accordingly, TRAI notified following regulations for Quality of Service (QoS) Standards for telecom services.
1) “The Standards of Quality of Service of Basic Telephone Service (Wireline) and Cellular Mobile Telephone service regulations, 2009
2) Quality of Service of Broadband Service Regulations 2006 and
3) The Standards of Quality of Service for Wireless Data Services Regulations 2012. These regulations have been amended from time to time based on induction of new technologies like 4G.
TRAI has been receiving a number of complaints from the subscribers regarding call drops and other network related issues especially after rollout of 5G services. Upon detailed analysis of quarterly QoS performance reports, the Authority has noted that due to a long performance assessment period of a quarter over a large area like LSA, there may be pockets or areas experiencing poor quality of service due to averaging effect while service providers are meeting overall QoS benchmark at LSA level.
Accordingly, to have a closer view of the status of QoS, the draft regulations propose monthly QoS performance reporting at State and UT level in addition to at LSA level.
The QoS parameters and benchmarks for voice and data services are technology agnostic in present regulations. The relevant terminology for 5G services has also been updated in draft regulations to monitor QoS performance of 5G.
As 4G and 5G networks are providing much wider coverage in the country compared to the 2G and 3G networks, the stringent performance benchmarks, especially related to call drops, are proposed for 4G and 5G services to improve consumer experience.
The network availability is an important requirement for good QoS. Therefore, the performance against service provider’s network availability is proposed to be monitored at State and UT level to ensure that consumers get uninterrupted services.
To simplify the regulatory framework for QoS, it is proposed to have single regulation dealing with QoS standards for all voice and data services irrespective of their access medium i.e., for both wireline and wireless services. Accordingly, the present three regulations are proposed to be merged into a single regulation.
To address all relevant QoS related issues in a holistic manner, TRAI issued the consultation paper seeking ‘stakeholders’ comments.