The Government Is Wrong On Call Drops

Attorney General Mukul Rohtagi made some fascinating claims in the Supreme Court when putting forward the government’s stand in the case filed by Telecom companies against the call drop order. As many of you may remember, the call drop order was issued by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) on 16 October 2015. The telecos decided to challenge the order in the Delhi high court and when the order was upheld , they decided to approach the Supreme Court.

Here are a few claims made by AG Rohtagi representing the ‘minimum government’-

1. Four to five service providers are running a cartel of (a) billion subscribers’. (Source: ANI )

Apparently the cartel is so powerful that there are eight players with more than five percent of the market share in wireless services and the biggest service provider i.e. Airtel has less than 25 percent . (Source - TRAI)

The AG seems to believe that there is a cartel when 70,79,557 new subscribers were added in the month of January. This when India’s Tele density is at 80.3 percent.

2. ‘Service providers don’t care about money loss to subscribers due to call drops’ : AG (Source: ANI )

One wonders if the government cares about the loss of money to taxpayers when it puts more money into schemes like NREGA.

Why this special concern for telecom subscribers? Moreover, as Mahesh Uppal has written in the FE , the Trai itself has provided no estimate of the ‘losses’ to subscribers. As the Trai itself notes, 59 percent of the subscribers get billed on a per-second basis. The possibility of loss due to call drops is non-existent for 59 percent of the subscribers.

3. Telecos earn 250 cr/day from calls,while impact of call drop penalty to be is just 0.4% of telcos revenue’ : AG (Source: DNA )

AG who is representing the Trai here claims that the quarterly penalty would amount to about 900 crore. The Trai itself had earlier claimed that the loss would not be more than 200 crore per quarter at the maximum. Another report says the AG pegs the loss at 280 crore. God save us if they make policy based on such blatantly inaccurate and constantly changing assumptions .

4. ...in New York and Iceland, there are no mobile towers but they still have quality cellular service due to investment in technology‘ : AG (Source: India TV )

New York is a region with a per capita income of more than $ 40,000 and Iceland is one with per capita income of more $ 47,000. Are they even comparable to our nation ? Moreover, a simple check on the net shows that New York has more than 290 towers registered with the telecom regulator. ( Registration is not compulsory in the US).

The AG used the above mentioned statement in reply to the assertion by telecom companies that they are unable to solve the call drop problem as they can set up enough telecom towers. It is distressing to see the government’s top law officer making such claims in the Supreme Court.

The government and the AG are not only wrong but also lying about the issue. This harassment of telecom service providers is unwarranted and harmful to users in the long term.