Trai imposes Rs 50 lakh penalty on 9 telcos for poor service

Telecom regulator TRAI has imposed cumulative penalty of Rs 50 lakh (Rs 5 million) on nine mobile operators for failing to meet quality of service benchmarks in the second quarter ended June 2013, official sources said.

The regulator has imposed maximum penalty of Rs 14.5 lakh (Rs 1.45 million) on state-run telecom company BSNL for failing to meet 13 quality of service parameters, they said, adding that no penalty was imposed on Videocon, Loop Mobile and state-run MTNL.

TRAI imposed Rs 12.5 lakh (Rs 1.25 million) penalty on Aircel and Reliance Communications (including Reliance Telecom) for failing to meet certain parameters.

The regulator imposed a penalty of Rs 300,000 on Idea Cellular, Rs 200,000 each Bharti Airtel and Vodafone, Rs 150,000 each on Uninor and

Vodafone, sources said.

A fine of Rs 50,000 was imposed on CDMA operator MTS.

Under existing regulations, TRAI can impose up to Rs 50,000 penalty on telecom operators for failing to meet any quality of service parameter for mobile services and up to Rs 100,000 for repeating such failure.

For example, if call drop rate benchmark of (less than) two per cent is not met by an operator in the first quarter after coming into force of these regulations, a financial disincentive not exceeding Rs 50,000 would be imposed.

In case, in any of the subsequent quarters the benchmark for the same parameter i.e. call drop rate benchmark is not met, financial disincentive not exceeding Rs 100,000 will be imposed by the authority.

The regulator, however, can impose a penalty of up to Rs 10 lakh if it finds that telecom operators have submitted false compliance report on quality of service benchmark.