Improving State of Telecom - Additional Inputs
Dear Friends:
A few months back, we had done an extensive poll on the State of Telecom in India.
With this post, we would like to seek additional inputs on State of Telecom.
Kindly review the Issues, Root Causes and Solutions below and if you have anything additional, please respond while identifying what it is.
We are about to take this revised whitepaper to the key leaders in the Telecom Ministry so actions can be taken to improve Telecom Service in India.
I look forward to your inputs
Rajendra Pratap Gupta
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Issues Identified:
1. Bills are not sent on time
2. Transparency in tariff plans missing
3. Customer Care calls are charged instead of being toll free numbers
4. Customers have to wait longer time to talk to the customer care executives
5. Customer service is very poor
6. Problem of cross connection in BSNL
7. ‘Line busy’ message during peak hours
8. Clarity of voice not there
9. Signal transmission between various companies is not well maintained
10. Too many unwanted calls and sms from the service providers
11. Schemes get activated without customer’s consent
12. Data speed is not uniform everywhere
13. Roaming charges are high
14. E-bills are forced instead of paper bills
15. MTNL’s customer service is very unprofessional and lazy
16. Late payment charges are high
17. Cost of SMSs is increased during the festive season
18. Data plans are not economical and many cases signals are not sufficient while on the move
19. Service Provider's network towers are located in residential areas on top of residential buildings causing radiation hazards to the neighbourhood
20. Difficulty in getting SIM's for achieving compatibility with the latest trending phones
21. Number portability between different service providers takes a long time
22. Lots of problems with the billing
23. Broadband speed is the slowest we have among emerging economies
24. Grievance redressal system is very poor
25. Long wait in getting a new land line connection
26. MTNL phones/landlines might not work for half the month but the bill is charged for the full month
27. The price of Airtel’s 2G unlimited data plan has gone up by 15% and the speed has reduced by 55%
28. Post-paid phone disconnection is a tough task
Root Causes Identified:
1. Telecom companies are becoming more and more profit centred
2. Regulations from TRAI are pretty loose
3. DoT is not adequately monitoring compliance of licensing requirements
4. Not enough towers installed
5. Tough to install towers in very densely populated areas
6. Government owned telecom companies still have the old working methodologies
7. The employees of government telecom operators are not customer focused
8. Annual increments of the employees is not performance based (public sector)
9. No one takes the onus of the customer problems and just pass the bucks
10. Tough competition forces them to take unethical decisions
11. Push from the higher management for higher revenues
12. BSNL and MTNL do not come under Consumer Protection Act
13. Mismanagement in MTNL and BSNL
14. Corruption in all the ranks
15. The cables and wires are not properly done at home connections. It is just tied to the trees and buildings around
16. The telephone posts are indiscriminately used by local cable operators
17. The wiring is old which leads to disturbance in the line
18. The numbers to be handled are very large but the infrastructure is not that strong
19. Telecom operators want to make money from anything and everything
20. Infrastructure for providing high speed broadband connection missing
21. No Government regulations on pricing
Solutions Identified:
1. Operators need to ensure that the paper/e-bill is sent to consumers on time
2. Customer care calls should be made free
3. Number of customer care executives should be increased to reduce waiting time
4. Customer service executives should undergo regular training and development
5. The telecom infrastructure needs to be updated to the latest
6. Strict regulations should be put on marketing calls and SMSs
7. Roaming charges should be done away with
8. There should be no hidden costs in tariff plans offered to the customer
9. The Government enterprises (MTNL/BSNL) should train their customer service to be more professional
10. The operators should not be allowed to increase call/sms rates during peak festive season
11. Call to the customer care of telecom companies should be absolutely free
12. Strict timelines should be defined for number portability
13. MTNL should give a rebate in the bill for the number of days the phone/broadband doesn’t works
14. Customer complaints should be proactively followed up with
15. BSNL/MTNL should be brought under the usual consumer protection act
16. More towers should be set up to boost the mobile phone signals
17. TRAI should monitor the working of telecom operators strictly
18. Any wrongdoing from the operators should be strictly penalized
19. Corruption should be completely eradicated
20. Roaming charges should be discontinued
21. Data plans should be made economical and operators should ensure that the data speed remains uniform everywhere
22. Number portability should be made quick and easy
23. A proper grievance reporting channel should be created for BSNL and MTNL
24. A time frame should be devised for grievance redressal
25. In case the MTNL landlines don’t work for more than a week, discounts should be given on the monthly bill
26. The process of getting a postpaid connection discontinued should be eased out
27. MTNL and BSNL should make their network wireless more
A few months back, we had done an extensive poll on the State of Telecom in India.
With this post, we would like to seek additional inputs on State of Telecom.
Kindly review the Issues, Root Causes and Solutions below and if you have anything additional, please respond while identifying what it is.
We are about to take this revised whitepaper to the key leaders in the Telecom Ministry so actions can be taken to improve Telecom Service in India.
I look forward to your inputs
Rajendra Pratap Gupta
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Issues Identified:
1. Bills are not sent on time
2. Transparency in tariff plans missing
3. Customer Care calls are charged instead of being toll free numbers
4. Customers have to wait longer time to talk to the customer care executives
5. Customer service is very poor
6. Problem of cross connection in BSNL
7. ‘Line busy’ message during peak hours
8. Clarity of voice not there
9. Signal transmission between various companies is not well maintained
10. Too many unwanted calls and sms from the service providers
11. Schemes get activated without customer’s consent
12. Data speed is not uniform everywhere
13. Roaming charges are high
14. E-bills are forced instead of paper bills
15. MTNL’s customer service is very unprofessional and lazy
16. Late payment charges are high
17. Cost of SMSs is increased during the festive season
18. Data plans are not economical and many cases signals are not sufficient while on the move
19. Service Provider's network towers are located in residential areas on top of residential buildings causing radiation hazards to the neighbourhood
20. Difficulty in getting SIM's for achieving compatibility with the latest trending phones
21. Number portability between different service providers takes a long time
22. Lots of problems with the billing
23. Broadband speed is the slowest we have among emerging economies
24. Grievance redressal system is very poor
25. Long wait in getting a new land line connection
26. MTNL phones/landlines might not work for half the month but the bill is charged for the full month
27. The price of Airtel’s 2G unlimited data plan has gone up by 15% and the speed has reduced by 55%
28. Post-paid phone disconnection is a tough task
Root Causes Identified:
1. Telecom companies are becoming more and more profit centred
2. Regulations from TRAI are pretty loose
3. DoT is not adequately monitoring compliance of licensing requirements
4. Not enough towers installed
5. Tough to install towers in very densely populated areas
6. Government owned telecom companies still have the old working methodologies
7. The employees of government telecom operators are not customer focused
8. Annual increments of the employees is not performance based (public sector)
9. No one takes the onus of the customer problems and just pass the bucks
10. Tough competition forces them to take unethical decisions
11. Push from the higher management for higher revenues
12. BSNL and MTNL do not come under Consumer Protection Act
13. Mismanagement in MTNL and BSNL
14. Corruption in all the ranks
15. The cables and wires are not properly done at home connections. It is just tied to the trees and buildings around
16. The telephone posts are indiscriminately used by local cable operators
17. The wiring is old which leads to disturbance in the line
18. The numbers to be handled are very large but the infrastructure is not that strong
19. Telecom operators want to make money from anything and everything
20. Infrastructure for providing high speed broadband connection missing
21. No Government regulations on pricing
Solutions Identified:
1. Operators need to ensure that the paper/e-bill is sent to consumers on time
2. Customer care calls should be made free
3. Number of customer care executives should be increased to reduce waiting time
4. Customer service executives should undergo regular training and development
5. The telecom infrastructure needs to be updated to the latest
6. Strict regulations should be put on marketing calls and SMSs
7. Roaming charges should be done away with
8. There should be no hidden costs in tariff plans offered to the customer
9. The Government enterprises (MTNL/BSNL) should train their customer service to be more professional
10. The operators should not be allowed to increase call/sms rates during peak festive season
11. Call to the customer care of telecom companies should be absolutely free
12. Strict timelines should be defined for number portability
13. MTNL should give a rebate in the bill for the number of days the phone/broadband doesn’t works
14. Customer complaints should be proactively followed up with
15. BSNL/MTNL should be brought under the usual consumer protection act
16. More towers should be set up to boost the mobile phone signals
17. TRAI should monitor the working of telecom operators strictly
18. Any wrongdoing from the operators should be strictly penalized
19. Corruption should be completely eradicated
20. Roaming charges should be discontinued
21. Data plans should be made economical and operators should ensure that the data speed remains uniform everywhere
22. Number portability should be made quick and easy
23. A proper grievance reporting channel should be created for BSNL and MTNL
24. A time frame should be devised for grievance redressal
25. In case the MTNL landlines don’t work for more than a week, discounts should be given on the monthly bill
26. The process of getting a postpaid connection discontinued should be eased out
27. MTNL and BSNL should make their network wireless more
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View all 55 comments Below 55 comments
I agree with Ramachandran that BSNL needs the support of the government but here at Rourkela some class four employees are the cause of loss. They steal the cables and sell them. On the other hand the civil society of Sundergarh has come up with the allegation that some higher authorities of the BSNL are said to have been paid off by the private telecom companies to disable internet in order to allow them to do business, no doubt there is a failure of link through BSNL every month for a few days in Rourkela and Sundergarh. more
Feb 28
Impose customer satisfaction index through TRAI. If below benchmark , penalise the telecom services. more
Feb 28
one thing i want to say political influence in the past ruling party decade has destoryed telecom industry by taking favourable decessions to private telecom operators in all aspects destroyed BSNL financial viability and self stand, it should be regained again because BSNL has very strong infrasture and manpower and latest telecom machines only thing is government should support BSNL to grow more for that new projects should be allotted to BSNL LIKE providing Wi-Fi conection to all schools and colleges and hospitals and railway stations to BSNL this will automatcally give profit to BSNL and also to public by education thro e-learning and public grievences thro e-portal and health thro e-health support from worlds top medical universities and hospitals more
Feb 27
The Department of Telecommunications before it becomes a PSU as B.S.N.L, was comfortable in profit lines around 8,000 - 10,000 crores p.a. and was paying Productive Linked Bonus to it's employees regularly! After Provision of all required Lines, Equipment on Hire, Buildings etc infrastructure to it's present competitors and after development of some undesirable elements with in the Department, now it has become a liability to the Union Government. But It is not an insurmountable task to bring back it's glory, if at all the present Government decides with whole heart. more
Feb 27
