Telecom Ministry Looks to Boost Domestic Manufacturing, Improvement of Services

Union communications minister Jyotiraditya Scindia held a meeting with the stakeholders advisory committee (SAC) on Tuesday to discuss prospects of telecom product manufacturing in India and to set up a ‘telecom manufacturing zone’. In a separate meeting held with the telecom service providers (TSPs) on the same day, the minister pointed out that the quality of service provided by TSPs to customers must be at par with global standards. 

“All these efforts aim at making ‘Bharat, a product manufacturing nation’ and giving a spur to ‘make in India, make for the world for telecom products’ vision,” said a press release on September 24. 

The meeting with SAC included key stakeholders like telecom sector original equipment manufacturers, telecom service providers, and tele-electronic eco-systems. 

The minister highlights the quality of telecom services around the time when the telecom regulatory authority of India (TRAI) is behind the telecom companies to submit the compliance reports based on the new quality of services rules. 

What are the new quality service rules? 

Nearly after a decade, on August 2, the regulator revised the standards of quality of service (QoS) for access and broadband services. The revision was done by the regulator to ensure that services delivered are aligned with the changing technology landscape of telecom networks. 

“To account for the quality arising out of large-scale penetration of new & emerging technologies such as 4G & 5G and high-speed broadband services on fiber, the authority...has put forward a comprehensive regulatory framework which encompasses QoS benchmarks for all three services at one place,” said the regulator. 

Under the new rules, the regulator will measure performance on certain specific parameters like network availability, call drop, voice packet drop rate in uplink and downlink, etc. On cell level. The telecom companies will be required to publish QoS performance on their website. Additionally, the telecos will have to display mobile coverage maps on their website along with network outages, jitter, maximum bandwidth utilisation, and SMS delivery success rate, etc. 

To deter companies from defaulting on new rules, TRAI has increased the monetary penalty from Rs 50,000 to Rs 1 lakh. 

TRAI, in its recent order last week, has directed companies that QoS reports must be submitted within 15 days after each quarter’s end. The direction by the regulator will come into effect from October 1.