Indian telecom regulator TRAI said its website will publish coverage maps of telecom service providers (TSP) enabling mobile phone users to make comparison and select the best operator.
Consumers are finding it difficult to take informed decision for selection of a service provider in absence of vital information such as tariff plans, network coverage etc. TRAI has already made available tariff portal.
Presently some of the telecom service providers (TSPs) provide coverage maps of their network on their websites. These portals offer maps at different scale and signal level, which makes it difficult for consumers to make any interpretation or comparison.
TRAI said users will be able to compare TSPs based on coverage and signal strength or no coverage area, etc. The portal is developed using coverage data provided by different TSPs. These maps on the portal will be updated on regular basis using coverage data received from TSPs.
TRAI has tied up with CDoT (Centre for Development of Telematics) for the purpose of building the website.
The data heavy portal offer comparison of network between two operators. During the beta release, portal shall permit up to 50 concurrent users. If there are more than 50 users they will get message to access the portal / website after some time.
India has a wireless subscriber base of 1,183.41 million till March 2018. Wireless user base in urban areas reached 662.18 million, and wireless subscriptions in rural areas rose to 521.23 million.
Airtel, Vodafone, Idea Cellular and Reliance Jio and BSNL are the top five wireless operators in India.
India’s wireless tele-density increased to 91.09 with urban wireless tele-density growing to 161.17 and rural wireless tele-density reaching 58.67. The share of urban wireless subscribers in total number of wireless subscribers was 55.96 percent. 44.04 percent was the share of rural wireless subscribers in total number of wireless subscribers.
The number of broadband subscribers reached 412.60 million.
Reliance Jio Infocomm, Bharti Airtel, Vodafone, Idea Cellular and BSNL are the top five broadband operators in India.
