Airtel, Jio, Vodafone Idea to immediately improve service quality and report call abandonment data at status level

Amid growing instances of quality of service issues and consumer complaints, TRAI has urged telecom operators to also report call drop and outage data at the state level and take immediate action. to “demonstrate visible improvement” in the quality of service and connectivity experience for consumers across the country. . On the issue of pesky promotional calls and messages, TRAI said telecom operators will be asked to implement an AI/ML (artificial intelligence/machine learning) tool that has proven effective in detecting and blocking push spam. by unregistered telemarketers over the phone. numbers (10-digit numbers).

This comprehensive new tool (currently being tested by Vodafone Idea) is expected to be implemented in around two months by the industry, reducing the threat of unsolicited promotional messages, said TRAI Chairman PD Vaghela.

On Friday, TRAI officials met with telecom companies such as Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea to discuss quality of service issues, 5G service standards as well as unsolicited commercial communications.

The regulator has made it clear to players that stricter service benchmarks are on the anvil when it comes to calling quality parameters, and that a consultation process will be launched by TRAI (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India ) in the coming months for this purpose.

TRAI’s dictate to telecommunications companies to improve quality of service is sure to encourage mobile customers, irritated by dropped calls and patchy networks. While 5G call data will for now be reported as part of the current system, separate QoS (Quality of Service) indicators for these next-generation services will eventually appear.

“We looked at the issue of call dropouts and service quality, and there was an increase in complaints also after 5G was implemented. We told operators to immediately improve service quality , whether or not this is due to the rollout of 5G services,” Vaghela told reporters after the meeting.

He added: “The time has come to completely overhaul the settings.” While an overhaul of call quality benchmarks is on the anvil, companies will need to report call drop and outage data at the state level now, and possibly at a later stage as well. at the district level.

This means that the data reported will be more granular and detailed (for 29 states) compared to the current practice of data reported at the licensed service area level (22 LSAs in total) and averaged on a quarterly basis.

State-level reporting will ensure that problem areas and uneven networks in certain states, particularly the Northeast, can be clearly identified and corrective actions can be taken by stakeholders. While such detailed (state-level) reporting will begin immediately, making it part of QoS standards, and imposing financial disincentives will take some time, Vaghela said.

“We have decided today that we will also monitor service quality at the state level,” Vaghela pointed out.

The parameters will be made stricter in the future, he said, adding that a consultation document will be published in this regard.

“The authority ordered telecommunications service providers (TSPs) to take urgent action to demonstrate visible improvement in quality of service and quality of experience for consumers. TSPs were instructed to analyze the issue muting one-way calls and speech and taking corrective action on priority,” TRAI said in a statement.

When deploying the 5G network, operators will need to ensure that there is the least disruption or degradation in the quality of service of existing telecommunications services. During the meeting, the telecom operators admitted that there had been some “problems” during the rollout of 5G, but assured that these were now ironed out.

“TSPs were further advised that TRAI is closely monitoring the implications of long-lasting network outages. Such outages negatively affect service quality and consumer experience,” TRAI said in a statement.

All telecommunications providers have been asked to report these outages to any district or state regulator. TRAI may consider bringing appropriate regulation in this regard, if necessary, the statement added.

TRAI also asked the players to plan and implement online data collection systems for quality of service testing and their processing to generate performance reports with a license service area, a level of State or lower granularity.

“Given the scale and size of the network being put in place for the deployment of 5G services, and the significant use cases being developed by different industry verticals, TRAI has asked TSPs to implement internal quality of service monitoring systems…on a 24/7, 360-degree basis,” it said.

Operating network features in accordance with the standard and adopting AI/ML techniques for QoS monitoring and management were also suggested, according to TRAI’s statement.

During the meeting, the regulator also provided an update on issues surrounding unsolicited commercial communications (UCC) and highlighted the need to limit instances where telemarketers misuse phone numbers to send promotional messages. .

“We will also write to all key Ministries and Departments, RBI and other regulators…as they have significant influence over banks, financial institutions and other stakeholders. message templates and removing unnecessary headers,” Vaghela said.

States and departments are sensitized as they also hire telemarketers to send important information such as benefits of various programs.

On Thursday, the telecommunications regulator had issued instructions to telecom operators to act quickly to end the misuse of message headers and templates, as they were unauthorized and pesky promotional messages. from telemarketers.

To put an end to these abuses and limit unwanted messages, the regulator has ordered access service providers (telecommunications operators) to re-verify all message headers and templates registered on the Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) platform. ) and block all unverified message headers and templates within 30 and 60 days, respectively.

“We are working on creating an AI/ML based system. Vodafone Idea has already implemented a sandbox experiment and it is successful, so we will use it. AI/ML enables identification telemarketers or spammers using 10-digit numbers and those can be blocked…within the next two months we should be able to implement this nationwide,” Vaghela said.

One of the telecom operators, attending the TRAI Quality of Service Review meeting, complained that the quality of service is also affected by some poor quality handsets in the market.

TRAI advised players to write to the telecommunications department to report the issue of poor quality handsets.