Call drops: Do telecoms focus on network performance?

TRAI (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India) has shared information about the poor quality services offered by Idea Cellular, Airtel, Vodafone, Reliance, Aircel and Tata Docomo – based on the performance test on their telecom network.

COAI on Friday informed that the Indian telecom industry has invested about Rs 50,000 crore or nearly $8 billion on infrastructure and spectrum during 2014-15. These investments have ensured improvement in network coverage and capacity enhancement with almost 70,000 additional cell towers being installed by the operators in the last 6 months to boost connectivity.

The following test drive results, shared by TRAI on Thursday, will reveal the telecom network performance in Mumbai and Delhi, two high ARPU regions for Indian telecoms.

COAI says  TRAI’s observation that there is no improvement in the QoS / call drops after conducting the second drive test in Septembers 2015, is not in line with the reports submitted to DoT by operators, which shows marked improvement in the operators’ networks over the past 8 weeks. The evaluation of a pan-India issue based on Drive tests conducted only in Delhi and Mumbai appears to be questionable.

DELHI

In Delhi, TUV SUD South Asia conducted two test drives in Delhi in July and September 2015.
TRAI test drive result in Delhi
The result in Delhi was is in line with the performance in Mumbai. The agency noted that there was no considerable improvement in the performance of the service providers as they are still showing the non compliance performance in respect of the most of the parameters.

The telecom service providers have improved performance for some of the parameters as compared to the previous drive test results but are still not complying with the benchmark.
TRAI test result on network of mobile service providers in Delhi
As the TRAI chart revealed, there is a huge difference in the number of subscribers handled by each cellular tower. Some operators argue that the difference is due to efficiency of spectrum and the nature of usage.

Idea Cellular has handled 1253 subscribers per BTS, against 2096 for Bharti Airtel, 1584 for Vodafone India, 2057 for Reliance Communications, 1416 for Aircel and 1813 for Tata Docomo.

MUMBAI

TRAI said its third party agency TUV SUD South Asia has conducted two test drives in Mumbai in June and September 2015.

In Mumbai, the drive test results revealed that there was no considerable improvement in the performance of the service providers as they are still showing the non compliance performance in respect of the most of the parameters.
TRAI drive test result in Mumbai
The network test revealed that the service providers have improved performance for some of the parameters as compared to the previous drive test results but are still not complying with the benchmark.
How telecom operators performed in TRAI test drive in Mumbai
In Mumbai, Idea Cellular has handled 1,153 subscribers per BTS as compared with 1168 for Bharti Airtel, 1895 for Vodafone, 1277 for Reliance Communications, 1357 for Aircel and 988 for Tata Docomo.

Baburajan K
[email protected]