Telcos in line of fire over call drops, inflated bills

In the wake of increased number of public complaints of call drops and inflated bills, Telecom Secretary Rakesh Garg today pulled up operators, asking them immediately address customer grievances and improve network.

"The Secretary (Telecom) briefed the telecom service providers (TSPs) about the falling perception in the public with regard to poor quality of telecom services in the country in general and with special emphasis on degrading quality in metros," an official statement stated.

The Secretary spoke about the perception in the public that call drops in network are a deliberate attempt of service providers for commercial gains and charging a customer multiple times for calls, according to the statement.

Garg also shared complaints about the "not-so-transparent" current billing system of telecom operators and frequent changes in the package rates, contrary to the initially agreed arrangement without any consent of the customer, it said.

"In the case of international roaming, TSPs do not have any warning system about the tariffs to be charged for various applications, e.g., data download, which result in many complaints of heavy charging of the customer.

There have been frequent complaints of charging even though the customer has already disconnected or not used the services of the TSPs," the statement added.

Telecom operators, on their part, assured Garg that they will do the needful on billing.

On the network problem, the players attributed the delay in installing mobile towers to public protest over radiation and delay in permission from local government authorities.

The telecom secretary asked companies to take steps to educate people on radiation and said the Department of Telecom has already taken up issues of telecom operators with state governments.

"He (Garg) emphasised that in no case these can become shield for poor service in the public perception and all the TSPs should take all possible steps to improve the quality of service and deal with customers' complaints promptly," the statement read.