Telecom Minster Ravi Shankar Prasad has confirmed that the call drop situation has improved in Delhi, but thinks network providers need to continue working on making their infrastructure better. He made the statement based on a survey conducted by the TERM (Telecom Enforcement, Resource and Monitoring) cell under the DoT.
According to the data, call drops have reduced significantly during the months of July to October but are yet to meet the quality benchmark set by the government, which stands at 2% of all the calls made through an operator’s network. Prasad claims the issue has subsided due to the installation of 22279 mobile towers across India and improvements in network design.
He went on to state that 25598 cell sites were found to be defective, out of which 13775 have been repaired and 13823 are yet to be fixed. As per PTI, there are currently a total of 18.33 lakh sites across India. 2092 2G and 3G towers were added in Delhi over the past 3 months. The move resulted Bharti Airtel’s rate falling from 2.92% – 17.77% to 0.08% – 2.98% by the end of October.
The TERM cell also reported that Vodafone’s call drop numbers have moved from 1.53% – 6.63% to 0.3% – 2.97%, Idea’s from 3.34% – 10.90% to 0.14% – 2.65%, Aircel’s from 0.77% – 6.21% to 0.29% – 2.66%, and Reliance Communications’ from 1.53% – 24.83% to 0.02% – 5.15%, on average in Delhi. The figures mark a significant improvement over earlier rates.
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A recent report by TRAI asserts that the occurrence rate of call drops by telecom companies touched heights of 24.59% for the 2G network and 16.13% for 3G services during the April to June quarter this year. It had deteriorated on a sequential basis on the basis of worst-affected mobile sites or towers passing the 3% mark.