The Hindu : Business : Fixed-line service providers fail to meet standards

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Jun 10, 2004

Business

Business

Fixed-line service providers fail to meet standards

By Our Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI, JUNE 9. Fixed-line service providers have once again failed to meet most of the specified benchmarks of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) for quality of service (QoS).

In its latest report for the quarter ended March 31, 2004, the TRAI has stated that regarding provision of new telephone connections, the performance of almost all operators was found to be below the specified benchmark of "all new connections to be provided within seven days after registration of demand.''

"Bharti met this criteria for 64 per cent of the cases in Delhi and 60 per cent in Karnataka, and the Tata's achievement in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka was 70 per cent and 19 per cent respectively.

Information regarding this parameter has not been furnished by the Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL), the Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (MTNL), Reliance and Tata (Maharashtra) for the quarter.''

Similarly, for the benchmark of fault incidences, which envisages three faults per 100 subscribers a month, wireless operators — Reliance and Tata — met the eligibility test while wire-based providers such as BSNL, MTNL and HFCL had failed to meet the benchmark.

"Against the benchmark of more than 90 per cent faults to be repaired by next day, all the private service providers and BSNL (for the 17 out of 26 circles) have met the benchmark. However, MTNL has failed to meet the benchmark in Delhi and Mumbai.''

In the area of billing credibility, where benchmark is "less than 0.1 per cent of bills disputed in a billing cycle,'' the BSNL met this benchmark in all the circles except Madhya Pradesh, Andaman and Nicobar, and Orissa.

Among the private operators, the benchmark was met only in a few circles like HFCL (Punjab), Bharti (Madhya Pradesh, Delhi, Haryana) and Reliance (Himachal Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh-West, West Bengal).

However, Bharti and Reliance failed to meet the benchmark in their other circles of operation. Also, Tata (Andhra Pradesh, Delhi, Gujarat, Maharashtra), Shyam Telecom (Rajasthan) and MTNL (Delhi) also failed to meet the benchmark.

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