'High no of billing disputes against Voda, Idea, BSNL, Aircel'

When it comes to the number of phone bill disputes, Vodafone, Idea Cellular, BSNL and Aircel were high on the list in several service areas during the quarter ended June, according to telecom regulator Trai's quality of service benchmark.

The quarterly report has also named MTS, brand name of Sistema Shyam Teleservices, and Uninor for billing disputes in UP West and Gujarat service area respectively.

As per Trai benchmark, not more than 0.1 per cent of the total bills raised by a company in a service area should be disputed.

The percentage of billing disputes against six telecom operators (Vodafone, Idea, BSNL, MTS, Aircel, Uninor) ranges between 0.11 per cent and 0.7 per cent. Aircel's score in Maharashtra is the worst at 0.7 per cent.

In case of Vodafone, maximum disputes (0.54 per cent) were noticed in post paid bills of Orissa service area followed by disputes in Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab and UP East.

Aircel's 0.16 per cent and 0.21 per cent of post paid bills were disputed in Maharashtra and Mumbai service.

Trai report mentioned about BSNL's billing dispute with customers in Assam, Kolkata and Maharashtra but the percetange of post-paid bills under dispute was not mentioned.

Idea's 0.15 per cent post paid bills in Madhya Pradesh, 0.13 per cent in Tamil Nadu and 0.12 per cent in UP East were disputed.

In case of pre-paid bills, Trai report named Vodafone for have billing dispute in Bihar, Kolkata and UP East below quality of service benchmark.

Among all operators, Aircel had maximum pre-paid billing dispute in Maharashtra and Mumbai service area.

BSNL was found non-compliant with pre-paid billing quality of service benchmark in Assam, Kolkata and Maharashtra service area.

Aircel and BSNL are the two companies, which could not resolve there billing disputes within four weeks, the time set under regulation as quality benchmark, as per the report.

The regulator has found that many customers of Aircel, Reliance Communications, Airtel, Tata Teleservices, Uninor and MTS in some of the telecom circles had to wait for more than a minute to get their calls answered.

RCom customers across 17 out of 22 service area and Aircel customers in 14 out of 22 service area had to wait for more than a minute which is below quality benchmark set by the regulator.