The fast action plan, that’s what the Indian Telecom operators plan to achieve and the government insists them to do, to tackle the ever increasing call drop issue.
The Indian Telecom operators will install around 60,000 cell towers or base transceiver stations (BTS) with an investment of Rs 12,000 crore in the next 100 days. This is done to improve the network quality and eventually keep a check on the call drop issue in the country.
The above action from telecom operators was part of a meeting called by the Department of Telecom (DoT) secretary J S Deepak with the representatives of all telecom operators, including Bharti Airtel chief for India and South Asia Gopal Vittal, Vodafone India head Sunil Sood, Idea Cellular CEO Himanshu Kapania and Reliance Jio Infocomm MD Sanjay Mashruwala.
“Government believes in the telecom sector. The quality of service must improve and industry has a responsibility,“commented DoT secretary J S Deepak after the meeting. “They have committed 60,000 towers. Each tower cost about Rs 20 lakh which is around Rs 12,000 crore. The industry will make this investment in next three months” he added.
The meeting covered four main areas which include, first the number of cell towers telecom operators will set up in the next threes months and the investment needed for that. Second, the investment in new technologies, to ensure network optimization and enable automatic detection of problem areas. Third the interference issue faced by the operators.
Finally, the challenges faced by telecom operators in network rollout which includes the ongoing issues with local authorities and municipal bodies in getting permission for various purpose.
“All top CEOs have said they will set up war rooms to address this issue. I felt that the industry has realized that the negative customer sentiment is too high so investments will not be constrained. We need to work with them to facilitate installation of mobile towers,” said the telecom secretary.
We hope Indian telecom operators and government commit to their words and put up more towers to tackle the call drop issue.