On 2nd August 2024, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) released revised regulations namely, ‘The Standards of Quality of Service of Access (Wirelines and Wireless) Service Regulations, 2024 (06 of 2024)’. These revised regulations are applicable for access (fixed and mobile) and broadband services.
- These regulations will come into effect on 1st October 2024.
Background:
i.Previously, TRAI issued 3 different regulations related to standards of Quality of Service (QoS), for Basic and Cellular Mobile Services, Broadband Services, and Broadband Wireless Services namely:
- The Standards of QoS of Basic Telephone Service (Wireline) and Cellular Mobile Telephone Service Regulations, 2009.
- QoS of Broadband Service Regulations, 2006.
- The Standards of QoS for Wireless Data Services Regulations, 2012. These regulations were amended from time to time.
ii.The revised regulations will replace above mentioned 3 regulations.
iii.The new regulations were framed after following a detailed consultative process through a Consultation Paper on ‘Review of Quality-of-Service Standards for Access Services (Wireless and Wireline) and Broadband (Wireless and Wireline) Services’ issued on 18th August 2023, which invited suggestions from various stakeholders.
Salient Features of the Regulation:
i.It has mandated the service providers to display technology (2G/3G/4G/5G) wise mobile coverage maps on their website to enable users or consumers to make informed decisions.
ii.The service providers have been mandated to publish QoS performance, against prescribed parameters, on their website. This will help to ensure transparency in QoS performance reporting.
iii.The benchmark set for Latency parameter has been aligned with international standards and new parameters for Jitter and Packet drop rate have been introduced, considering the performance requirement of latest emerging applications.
iv.QoS performance of mobile service shall now be monitored monthly instead of quarterly basis. This will enable timely redressal of network issues by the service providers.
- However, for smooth transition to monthly reporting, service providers have been granted 6 months time from the effective date of the regulation.
v.TRAI has decided to collect performance against certain parameters such as: network availability, call drop, voice packet drop rate in uplink and downlink, among others on cell level.
vi.The new regulations has prescribed a detailed and unambiguous measurement methodology, for uniform adoption of methodology by different service providers while measuring and reporting the performance.
vii.TRAI has decided to introduce stringent benchmarks for some key parameters such as: network availability (cumulative downtime and worst affected Cells due to downtime), call drop rate, packet drop rate, latency, among others, gradually over a time frame of 6 months to 2.5 years to enable service providers to upgrade their networks, wherever needed.
viii.The revised regulations has changed the measurement methodology for some key parameters such as: Downlink and Uplink Packet Drop Rate, latency, Point of Interconnection (PoI) Congestion, among others from average to percentile basis.
- This will help to identify pockets of degraded QoS performance for corrective action by service providers.
ix.Other than the requirement for display of mobile coverage map, new regulations has introduced new parameters like: reporting of significant network outages, jitter, maximum bandwidth utilization between radio and core network during busy hour and SMS delivery success rate etc.
x.QoS parameters have been rationalized based on the impact on consumer experience and relevance in the present context, as against international benchmarks, for parameters like: shifting of telephone connections, grade of service for local exchange have been transitioned from compliance to monitoring by the service providers.
xi.The revised regulations has mandated the service providers to upgrade their system for online monitoring and reporting of QoS performance.
xii.The service providers have been directed to adopt Six Sigma Quality Management Plan to achieve continuous improvement in the quality of services.
xiii.The revised regulations has introduced graded financial disincentives for all services in order to achieve time bound action on QoS related issues and early resolution of non-compliant QoS performance in the network.
About Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI):
It is statutory body established under the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India Act, 1997. It regulates telecom services including, fixation or revision of tariffs for telecom services. It works under the Department of Telecommunications (DoT), Ministry of Communication (MoC), Government of India (GoI).
Chairman-Anil Kumar Lahoti
Headquarters- New Delhi, Delhi
Established- 20th February, 1997
