New quality norms to raise compliance burden, costs for telecom firms: COAI

India's telecom service providers on Sunday said they were disappointed with the regulator's new quality of service (QoS) norms, as the compliance burden and associated costs will increase substantially without commensurate benefits to consumers.

In a statement, the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) that represents private sector telecom operators Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea, said that the regulations should consider the practical challenges of acquiring permissions for right of way and electromagnetic interference that degrade quality of service, and carriers have no control over them.

“While we are disappointed with the stringency of these new regulations, we remain committed to engaging constructively with Trai on QoS-related matters,” SP Kochhar, director general of COAI, said.

“The industry expresses concern over the proposed regulations, which not only tighten benchmarks but also shift from quarterly to monthly reporting and site to cell level reporting in many cases. In fact, the QoS parameters prescribed in the new regulations have not been introduced by any other regulator in other similar economies,” the industry body said.

On Friday, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) issued new quality of service (QoS) regulations which introduced financial penalties on telcos, mandated network performance disclosures and increased compliance for better mobile and broadband services for consumers.

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Penalties for non-compliance of each QoS benchmark starts at ₹1 lakh. A second offence raises the fine to a maximum of ₹2 lakh, while for subsequent offences it will be at ₹3 lakh per benchmark.

Submitting false compliance reports will incur fines of up to ₹2 lakh per benchmark, ₹5 lakh for a second instance, and ₹10 lakh for subsequent instances.

Telcos failing to submit compliance reports will be fined up to ₹5,000 per day, with a maximum penalty of ₹10 lakh.

Compensation for subscribers during outages

The regulations also mandated compensation for subscribers during network outages exceeding 24 hours, wherein postpaid customers will receive a rental rebate, while prepaid customers will get extended validity days.

It has also tightened benchmarks for various parameters, which telcos will need to implement within a timeframe of six months to two-and-a-half years. A major change in the measurement methodology is the shift from average to percentile-based calculation for key parameters such as packet drop rate, latency, and download or upload speed. Trai also introduced granular data metrics, including latency, jitter, packet drop rate, and network availability, which will now be monitored on a monthly basis instead of quarterly.

“These changes are expected to significantly increase the compliance as well as the cost burden on telecom operators, and without commensurate benefits for the customers,” Kochhar added.

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The association flagged issues of right of way (RoW) when acquiring permissions for infrastructure deployment in public and private land for the installation of cell towers and fibre-optic cables, which gets aggravated due to additional requirement of street furniture for the 5G networks.

Interference from various sources, such as other wireless devices and electromagnetic interference, degrade signal quality and network performance, the industry body said, adding that illegal boosters and repeaters used by unauthorised agents, as well as the cases of theft of equipment are also external factors that impact the quality of service.

Frequent takedown of the overhead fibre by the authorities also have a significant impact and telcos have limited control over these external sources.

The industry body noted that telcos have consistently invested in enhancing quality of service through significant improvements in network infrastructure, adopting advanced technologies and automation tools, including predictive maintenance and AI-driven analytics, to proactively address network issues. Major initiatives are underway to fiberize towers across India, which is a crucial step for the efficient deployment of 5G services, it added.