The Telecom regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has called a suo moto meeting with the telecom operators on October 29, 2015 to discuss the operators’ grievances related to the regulator’s recent mandate to compensate consumers for call drops.

TRAI has recently issued the ninth amendment to the Telecom Consumers Protection Regulations, 2012 mandating operators to provide compensation to consumers for call drops, with effect from January 1, 2016. Under the compensation mechanism, service providers would have to credit Re 1 in the account of the calling consumer for every dropped call. However, such credit will be limited to three dropped calls in a day.

Meanwhile, prior to the meeting, the industry bodies Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) and Association of Unified Telecom Service Providers of India (AUSPI) are planning to write a letter to TRAI listing out the issues that the operators would want to discuss in their meeting with the regulator. Further, the letter will point out anomalies in the new rules such as who would be penalised if a call drops when the phone runs out of battery or when a consumer enters a common area where network coverage is minimal. Moreover, the difficulties in the implementation of the new rules and the time frame for the same will also be raised in the communication. The operators are also likely to include the fact that under the telecom licences granted to them, they are not required to compensate customers for call drops.