TRAI said the financial implications — due to compensation on call drop — on mobile operators will not be more than Rs 200 crore per quarter.

The Rs 200 crore will be less than 1 percent of the total revenue of the telecom network operators. Main telecoms in India include Bharti Airtel, BSNL, Idea Cellular, Reliance Communications, Tata Docomo, Vodafone, Aircel, Telenor and MTNL.

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India said since there is a ceiling on compensation of Rs 3 per subscriber per day, the likely financial impact would be less than Rs 200 crore per quarter, according to TRAI estimates.

TRAI said it had conducted an analysis of the call data and call drops data. TRAI clarified that the regulation would not result into huge financial impact of Rs 54,000 crore per year. Some section of Indian media reported that the financial impact due to compensation on call drops would be Rs 54,000 crore per year.

The financial implications of Rs 54,000 crore per year on account of call drop compensation appears to be based on COAI/AUSPI’s apprehension that 50 percent of the consumers would manipulate and misuse the regulation to get Rs 3 everyday from telecoms.

On October 16, 2015 the Indian telecom regulator issued ninth amendment to the Telecom Consumers Protection Regulations, 2012 mandating the mobile service providers to provide relief to the consumers for call drops with effect from January 1, 2016.

Baburajan K
[email protected]