Telecom Lead India: Aircel, Vodafone and Idea Cellular fared the worst in handling mobile phone billing disputes in several service areas during the quarter ended December 2012, according to TRAI.
TRAI Performance indicator report says Aircel customers in 10 out of 22 telecom service areas disputed bills, Vodafone consumers in four and Idea subscribers in three service areas contended their bills.

BSNL and MTS customers in one circle each disputed the bills.

As per TRAI’s quality of service benchmark, not more than 0.1 per cent of the total bills raised by a company in a service area should be disputed.

The percentage of billing disputes against five telecom operators (Aircel, Vodafone, Idea, BSNL and MTS) ranges between 0.11 percent and 2.42 percent. Aircel’s score in Maharashtra is the worst at 2.42 percent, PTI reported on Monday.

In Aircel’s case, 0.11 percent to 0.25 percent of its post-paid bills in Gujarat, Jammu & Kashmir, Kolkata, Karnataka, Punjab and Rajasthan were disputed.

Pre-paid customers of Aircel disputed the charges deducted in Jammu & Kashmir, Mumbai, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Orissa. Around 0.11 to 2.42 percent of pre-paid bills of Aircel were disputed in these circles.

Idea Cellular was found non-compliant with billing quality of service benchmark in Gujarat, Haryana and Karnataka for post-paid services.

Aircel and Idea are the two companies which could not resolve their billing disputes within four weeks, the time set under regulation as quality benchmark.

 

Complaints against Vodafone’s post-paid services did not comply with benchmark set by TRAI in Jammu & Kashmir, Punjab and Uttar Pradesh (East). Around 0.24 percent of pre-paid bills raised by the company were disputed in Bihar circle.

Pre-paid and post-paid customers of Sistema Shyam Teleservices (MTS India) disputed 0.15 percent of bills raised in Delhi circle.

TRAI report also noticed that faulty billings by telecom operators for post-paid services increased to 5.68 per cent during the reported quarter from 4.37 per cent in previous quarter.

The telecom regulator has found that many customers of Aircel, BSNL, Idea Cellular, Reliance Communications, Tata Teleservices, Uninor and Vodafone in some of the telecom circles had to wait for more than a minute to get their calls answered.

Pix source: telegraph.co.uk
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