• News
  • Tech News
  • Users want government to review telcos' promised data speeds: Poll
This story is from September 30, 2015

Users want government to review telcos' promised data speeds: Poll

The government should review mobile data download speeds offered by telecom service providers against speeds promised.
Users want government to review telcos' promised data speeds: Poll
(This story originally appeared in on Sep 30, 2015)
NEW DELHI: The government should review mobile data download speeds offered by telecom service providers against speeds promised, an ET Telecom poll finding revealed, suggesting that data consumers are increasingly bothered by the quality of mobile internet services.
In a week-long opinion poll conducted on the ettelecom.com website, 83% of the respondents felt that the government/Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) should take a closer look at the telecom operators' promised and delivered data speeds.

Of the total respondents surveyed, 11% felt that telecom operators should be given sufficient time to ramp up their networks so that they can facilitate the desired broadband speeds, while 6% remained indecisive and believed that operators are performing under operational constraints.
The poll outcome comes at a time when the government and Trai have put intense pressure on mobile phone operators to improve the quality of voice calls, as call drops have intensified. The government is even considering pulling up erring telcos for call drops. TRAI has also floated a consultation paper on whether to penalize telcos for poor call quality.
While agreeing on the need to take a closer look at data speeds amid the broader issue of worsening quality of services — something which comes under the ambit of TRAI — analysts say that such network scrutiny makes sense only if the regulator undertakes a broad assessment with a large sample size.
Despite India having the world's third-largest population of internet users, it ranks 52nd with an average of 2.4Mbps speed, according to Akamai Technologies while a recent Deloitte study states that the country lags in 3G and 4G cell sites to support consumers surging data needs.

"It makes sense to survey and document data speeds and share it with consumers as it deems fit. The task has little meaning if carried out on a small sample," telecom consultant and ComFirst India managing director Mahesh Uppal said.
Uppal feels that while scrutiny is desirable in practical terms, it will be a complex task prone to endless controversies and blame games. He added that the telecom regulator could also rely on markets to reward or punish players instead of taking it upon itself to do the job. With a number of consumers are taking their grievances to Trai, the regulator has already proposed that operators should mention the minimum download speeds in their tariff plans for data services across promotional campaigns, sale vouchers and official websites.
The regulator in its 2014 study observed that the minimum download speed varies drastically among service providers even for the same technology and is expected to revise speed limits from a minimum 1 megabit per second (Mbps) for 3G and CDMA EVDO and 56 kilobit per second (Kbps) for GSM and CDMA 2G users.
"Service operators will certainly need to find quick and cheap solutions to build alternatives that could be used to offload the burgeoning mobile data traffic," Deepak Kumar, founder analyst, BusinessandMarket said, adding telcos have so far failed to pay the required attention to such alternatives, which is turning to be the root cause of internet speed issues.
End of Article
FOLLOW US ON SOCIAL MEDIA