Blitz Bureau
NEW DELHI: To tighten the norms for 4G and 5G services, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) on August 3 revised Standards of Quality of Service (QoS) for access (wireless/ wireline) and broadband service (wireless/ wireline), mandating service providers display technology (2G/3G/4G/5G) -wise mobile coverage maps on their websites to enable consumers to make informed decisions.
Also, the sector regulator has introduced provisions for financial penalties for all services to resolve QoS issues in a time-bound manner.
For instance, the financial disincentive (FD) for false reporting has also been changed to a graded basis. First false reporting will invite FD of Rs 2 lakh per parameter instead of Rs 10 lakh per parameter as per existing regulations. However, the same will increase to Rs 5 lakh and Rs 10 lakh for second and subsequent false reporting, respectively.
TRAI said that service providers have been mandated to publish QoS performance against prescribed parameters on their websites to bring transparency to QoS performance reporting. Further, to enable timely redressal of network issues by the service providers, the QoS performance of mobile service shall now be monitored monthly instead of quarterly. However, for a smooth transition to monthly reporting, service providers have been given six months’ time from the effective date of the regulation, it said.