Govt, telecom companies in blame game over call drops issue

Serious differences came to the fore between the government and telcos on the issue of frequent call drops on Monday with each blaming the other for the problem.

Top telecom companies said that the situation would further deteriorate unless operational difficulties in installing towers are tackled by the government through a national policy. All telecom operators and industry associations demanded that there should be a uniform tower policy that can be implemented across the country.

"We need a uniform national tower policy which can be implemented nationally and not just guidelines," Idea Cellular managing director Himanshu Kapania told journalists at a press conference in the national capital.

Vodafone India Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Sunil Sood said that telecom minister Ravi Shankar Prasad has already come out in favour of the industry for installing more sites and also allayed fears with regard to radiation threat. However, telecom secretary Rakesh Garg said that "there is no linkage between call drops and tower policy. There was no policy earlier but call drops did not happen." In a meeting with all operators, Garg asked them to take all necessary steps to improve services and said that no serious efforts are being made to bring about a perceptible change.

The industry sought additional spectrum and harmonisation of airwaves to improve capacity and also demanded they be allowed to install towers on government buildings. Garg said that optimisation is a continuous process and efforts need to be intensified for desirable results and the government would do whatever it can on the issue.

The operators had at their joint press conference also listed the sealing of towers by local bodies as another reason for the call drops. The telcos said that more than 10,000 cell sites have been made non-operational due to some of these reasons across major cities. However, Garg told the operators that the number of towers which have been affected is too small to have a justifiable effect in terms of such frequent call drops.