New Delhi: Under new rules announced by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) on Friday, telecom operators will now be required to compensate subscribers if service outages last more than 24 hours at a district level. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) has raised the penalty for failing to meet quality standards under the new rules. The fine has been increased to Rs 1 lakh, up from Rs 50,000.
The regulator has rolled out a new graded penalty system under the updated “Standards of Quality of Service of Access (Wirelines and Wireless) and Broadband (Wireline and Wireless) Service Regulations, 2024.” Fines will now range from Rs 1 lakh to Rs 10 lakh, depending on the severity of the rule violations.
The new norms superseded three different regulations: Quality of Service (QoS) for basic and cellular mobile services, broadband services, and broadband wireless services. In case of a network outage in a district, telecom operators will need to provide a rebate on rent for postpaid customers and extend the validity of connection for prepaid customers as per the new rules.
“If any such significant network outage continues for more than 24 hours, the service provider shall provide a proportional rent rebate, as per subscribed tariff offering, for the actual number of days of service outage to postpaid subscribers registered in the affected district(s) in the next billing cycle,” Trai said.
The regulator will count network outage duration of more than 12 hours in a calendar day as one full day for the calculation of rent rebate or extension of validity. “Rent rebate to postpaid customer or validity extension to prepaid customer, due delay in rectification of faults or due to significant network outage of more than 24 hours, as applicable, shall be made within one week of rectification of significant network outage,” the new norms said.
However, outages due to natural calamities will not be considered for the extension of validity. Even fixed-line service providers will have to compensate postpaid and prepaid customers if the fault in their network or service is fixed after three days. The new rule mandates broadband service providers to activate 98% of connections within 7 days of customers making payment.
Mobile service providers will need to provide service-wise (2G, 3G, 4G, 5G) geospatial coverage maps on their website that will help users. Trai’s new rules will come into force after six months. (With PTI Inputs)