Trai fixes mobile call ring time at 30 seconds

Reliance Jio has accused old operators, including Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea, of "illegally" masquerading wire-line numbers as mobile numbers for "undue enrichment".

Telecom regulator Trai on Friday fixed phone call ring time at 30 seconds for mobiles and 60 seconds for landline phones in case the call is neither answered nor rejected by a subscriber.

The new rules will come into effect after 15 days.

"The time duration of alert for an incoming voice call, which is neither answered nor rejected by the called party, shall be thirty seconds for Cellular Mobile Telephone Service (CMTS) and sixty seconds for basic telephone service," Trai said in an amendment to quality of service norms for basic telephone service and cellular mobile telephone service.

The UN body International Telecommunication Union (ITU) has specifications for international calls or circuits in the range of 1.5 minutes to 3 minutes but there is no prescribed value for the timer for domestic calls.

The present range of duration of call alert by different telecom service providers (TSPs) varies from 30 seconds to 45 seconds in case of the mobile networks, except one telecom operator has set "alert duration" as 25 seconds and in case of basic telephone networks, it varies from 60 seconds to 120 seconds.

Reliance Jio has accused old operators, including Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea, of "illegally" masquerading wire-line numbers as mobile numbers for "undue enrichment" and has exhorted Trai to slap "severest penalty" on them for violating regulations and licensing norms.

Bharti Airtel has hit back saying Jio is trying to misguide the regulator ahead of the consultation on call connect charges (also called interconnect usage charges).

Telecom operators on their own were reducing incoming call ring time to attract reverse call from subscribers of other networks.

Under the new rules, telecom operators on whose network call is made will have to release the network channel which has been used to send incoming call alert  after 30 seconds on mobile network and 60 seconds on landline network.

"The terminating network shall, on expiry of thirty seconds in case of CMTS and sixty seconds in case of Basic Telephone Service, release the incoming voice call and transmit the call release message to the originating network: Provided that the originating network may release an unanswered call after ninety seconds in case the call release message is not received from the terminating network," the new norm said.

In case call channel is not released by the terminating network the number engaged in transaction remain busy and other telephone services also get impacted.

Photograph: Krishnendu Halder/Reuters