Aircel & Airtel to appear before COIA to explain the cause of call drops

Despite several reminders from Reliance Jio to incumbent operators - Airtel and Aircel - to increase the points of interconnects (PoI) in order to avoid the call drops, they are yet to meet the demand.

Hence, to justify the matter on call drops, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information Technology has called telecom operators Airtel and Aircel to appear on January 5.

A notice of the panel said the meeting will be held on January 5, 2017, to "to hear the views of the representatives of Bharti Airtel Limited and Aircel Limited on the subject 'issues related to the quality of services and reported call drops'".

According to Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) report for April-June quarter, highest call drop was reported on Aircel network across most telecom circles in the country. With Aircel, other networks like RCom, Telenor, BSNL and Vodafone also reported leading call drops in April-June period.

COAI urged the committee to hear out incumbent operators, including Bharti Airtel, Idea Cellular, and Vodafone, for a fairer assessment of the situation.

The panel, chaired by BJP MP and BCCI President Anurag Thakur, had earlier met officials of Cellular Operators Association of India and Reliance Jio to discuss call drop issue.