Delhi HC issues notice to TRAI over call drop plea filed by telcos

The Delhi High Court today sought a reply from the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) over a plea filed by the Cellular Operators Association of India regarding TRAI’s tariff order..This order which shall be in force from January 1, makes it mandatory for telecom operators to compensate subscribers for the first three calls dropped per day at the rate of Re 1 per dropped call..The plea of the Association stated that TRAI had issued the said order without taking into consideration that ‘the laws of physics that made it impossible to provide a 100% call drop free network.’.The plea further stated,.“Exponential growth of data traffic requires operators to deploy additional network capacity / additional antennas/sites, which have hit a roadblock due to non-availability of sufficient spectrum, indiscriminate sealing / shutdown of existing sites and inability to acquire new sites in many areas; Interference in the Spectrum provided resulting in deterioration in quality of service and failure of the Government to remedy such interference; No clear policy for deployment of cell sites in certain areas and on Government Land/ Buildings and in Defense areas- leading to huge coverage holes etc.”.The petition had also gone on to state that as per the terms & conditions of licenses granted to the Petitioners, there existed no provision to deal with call drops and particularly payment of any compensation for such call drops..Today when the matter came up for hearing, Senior Advocate Harish Salve represented the Association while Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi appeared for TRAI. Just as Salve was delving into the nuances of the issue, the Bench interjected and said that since the TRAI order was only to be implemented from January 1 2016, there was sufficient time to hear both sides before passing any order in this regard..“Let the other side also file their response and we will hear you next week.” .After issuing notice to TRAI, the Bench proceeded to adjourn the matter for hearing on December 22.