With dropped calls on the rise, landlines ring again

Saurabh Pilot may live in Delhi's upmarket South Extension area, but every time his mobile phone rings, he runs out to the balcony to take the call. "It's the only spot where I get good reception," says Pilot, a 3G subscriber of Bharti Airtel. Frequent call drops, poor voice quality and slow internet speeds are a growing inconvenience for Indian mobile phone users across networks. The problem becomes worse during festive seasons like Diwali when mobile traffic is higher than normal. Subscribers in most major metros are enduring these spotty services, despite regulator Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai)'s quality of service guidelines mandating that the call drop rate should not exceed 2%. "I dread making important calls from my mobile phone as there is always this fear that the call will drop suddenly," says Shekhar Chowdhury, a corporate executive who has an Idea Cellular connection in Pune. In fact, the frustrating disruptions on the mobile networks have resulted in a comeback of sorts for landline phones. "I have to line up important meetings on the landline as the mobile networks just cannot be trusted for crucial work," says a senior media professional. The problem seems to be that the networks haven't kept pace with growth. According to the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), India's mobile subscriber base went from 391 million users in March 2009 to over 900 million by March this year (up 131%). But mobile towers, for instance, have only grown 41% between 2010 and 2014. COAI says that the average spectrum holding per operator in India is "very low" when compared to many other markets, including Australia, South Korea, Singapore and Malaysia. As a result, frequent network outages and slow data connectivity, particularly on the 2G network, have soured consumer experience. Dr Ritin Prakash, a Vodafone customer in Noida, says his 3G data connection is often down during the day. "It disrupts my whole schedule," he says. Praveen Das, an equally frustrated mobile subscriber in Chennai, adds, "The data and voice services are patchy in many areas." Kim S, an Idea Cellular subscriber in Delhi, had to write to the company's CEO to get her problems addressed. "The connection is patchy and irregular in my residence and the helpline was ineffective." Operators blame the government for the delay in allotting spectrum (airwaves carrying mobile signals) even as subscriber volumes grow. "There are unnecessary fears and restrictions regarding the installation of mobile towers," says Rajan Mathews, director-general of COAI, a grouping of GSM players like Airtel, Vodafone and Idea. Fear of radiation and other harmful effects have only made matters worse for operators who also have to deal with resident welfare associations (RWAs) and municipal authorities when expanding the support network. "We simply need more towers and spectrum to provide seamless mobile services, especially as the 3G network widens and 4G is being rolled out," says Mathews. Nokia Solutions and Networks Mobile Broadband India Traffic showed that the active 3G customer base grew by 50%, estimating the number of customers to be about 30 million at December 2013 end compared with 20 million in 2012. TOI