The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has floated a consultation paper, seeking views of the stakeholders on a proposal to compensate the consumers for call drops.

TRAI has proposed that users should not be charged for any call that gets dropped within five seconds. If a call gets dropped after five seconds, the last pulse of the call that got dropped should not be charged.

TRAI has sought the stakeholders’ suggestions on how a mobile user should be compensated for call drops. The regulator has suggested various alternatives for the same which include credit of talk-time in minutes/seconds and credit of talk-time in monetary terms for the dropped calls. The last date for submitting the comments on the paper is September 28, 2015.

TRAI had earlier conducted special drive-tests in Mumbai and Delhi and found that the call drop rates of most telecom service providers were higher than the benchmark of 2 per cent.  Meanwhile, TRAI will also start a consultation process on regular tracking of network quality of telecom operators with a view to provide customers with information regarding the quality of services (QoS) provided by various operators in a particular area.