Can mandatory mobile tower sharing help solve call drop issue?

The syndrome of peak ‘call drops’ which is being debated at various levels at the moment, is not a new scenario in India. This has happened in the past also, and each time a quick fix approach was adopted and the world moved on.

Surprisingly, each time the ‘call drop’ syndrome was not restricted to one individual mobile service provider in India, but this phenomenon occurred across all the operators within the same time band. While, technically speaking, the call drop is nothing unusual, but in India, this has reached a new level. Whatever, the level may be, at the receiving end are people like us, the consumer of the service.

Till late, both the government and the mobile service providers have been giving their point of views, leaving us the consumers in a situation, where we are forced to pay for a compromised service.

Whom do we blame for such a situation, the government or the mobile service providers or the growing number of consumers – who are adding to the bottom line of both, the operators in terms of revenue and the government in terms of user license fee. Each addition of a new subscriber results in more revenue for both the entities.

We do understand that there is blame game between the service provider and the government over the availability of more spectrum, shutting down of the mobile towers, both being very crucial for the seamless service. If there is lacuna in the policy issue or if there is a faulty planning at the services providers front, why should we as a consumer pay for it.

What is surely required is the introduction of a clause which penalized either the faulty policy or the service provider for frustrating call drops.

Also what is required is a coordination and speed between various government agencies which are responsible of allowing the installation of mobile towers and this time government should also make it mandatory for service providers to share the mobile towers.

Government needs to penalise the operators based on QOS parameters, otherwise this go on forever.

(Rajesh Kaul is co-founder and CEO at Triotech Solutions.)