With the TRAI on July 24 prescribing quality of services standards for mobile data download speed, top telecom operators Bharti Airtel, Vodafone, Idea Cellular, Reliance Communications and Aircel are likely to feel the music.
Also read: Airtel leads Indian mobile Internet market, well ahead of Vodafone
Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, according to the Standards of Quality of Service for Wireless Data Services (Amendment) Regulations, 2014, said the minimum download speed specified in the data plans should be available at least 80 percent of usage time.
This will add additional pressure on telecom operators, analysts feel.
Indian mobile data consumers usually are not getting enough broadband speed to enjoy high speed Internet experience. But mobile Internet driven by 3G and 2G are a big business for telecoms such as Airtel, Vodafone, Aircel, Idea Cellular, etc.
Also read: Vodafone India service revenue up 10.3% to $1.74 billion
Usually, TSPs do not advertise about minimum guaranteed speed to their customers.
For instance, this week, Airtel introduce its 4G services in Nagpur. But Sunil Mittal-promoted Airtel does not talk about the minimum guaranteed speed to its LTE customers in Nagpur.
“Customers can enjoy Bharti Airtel 4G’s unbeatable speed on Airtel 4G dongles and Wi-Fi CPEs at affordable prices. The dongles are priced at Rs 1500, the CPE is priced at Rs 2500. Customers can select from a host of affordable 4G post-paid plans. A special plan of Rs 2000 (for CPEs) has also been introduced for heavy data users which will offer 40 GB of 4G data,” Airtel said.
Some industry experts feel that the TRAI guideline will be a boost for telecoms to ensure better broadband speed to its customers. A recent Ericsson report said more than 80 percent mobile Internet users are ready to pay more if they can get better quality services.
Also read: What Indian 3G telecoms can learn from Ericsson ConsumerLab report?
From August 23, every telecom service provider, in all its wireless (mobile and dongle) data plans, should indicate the minimum download speed available to the consumers, says TRAI.
TRAI wants telecoms to act
TRAI has also Indian telecom operators to do the following:
(a) indicate in all the data plans the minimum download speed available to customers and such speed shall be available to the consumer for not less than eighty percent of the usage time.
(b) print the details of minimum dow,nload speed available to the consumer on the vouchers of the wireless data plans and to publish on its website and in all advertisements of wireless data plan.
(c) make available the details of minimum download speed offered at the complaint centres and sale outlets of TSPs.
(d) Publish, at their website, the minimum download speed as measured according to the test methodology prescribed, for each data plan.
TRAI said these guidelines follow several complaints from Indian mobile users across the country. TRAI feels these new norms are aimed at protecting the interest of telecom customers subscribing for wireless data services.
TSPs have opposed the proposal to prescribe the benchmarks for minimum download speed. Their main concerns in this regard were limited availability of spectrum in 2G / 3G bands per operators, low coverage zones such as basements, high rise building clusters, tunnels etc., subscribers device quality and type, number of subscribers browsing the data services, peak/ off peak time, transmission bandwidth, external interference, website behaviour etc.
Some of the TSPs had also submitted that the fair usage policy terms and conditions will have an impact on minimum download speed.
TRAI sayss minimum download speed, one of the Quality of Service (QoS) parameters, shall be average of the lower 10 percent of all such test calls. The minimum download speed should be calculated from test calls made according to the measurement set-up specified in the main regulation. Test calls are to be made to weigh the results according to the patterns of real traffic.
Baburajan K
editor@telecomlead.com
