New Delhi. There is a lot of trouble due to lack of network. Many times, this service of telecom companies remains disrupted for hours. The customers have to bear the brunt of this. No matter how many hours the service remains affected, it only causes loss to the users, but now this will not happen.
Telecom operators will have to compensate customers in case of service disruption for more than 24 hours at the level under the new Service Quality Standard rules issued by TRAI on Friday. TRAI’s new rules will come into effect after six months.
Customers will get compensation in case of service disruption
Under the new rules, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has increased the penalty amount for not meeting each quality standard from Rs 50,000 to Rs 1 lakh. If any laxity is found in the rules, then the telecom operator may have to pay this fine.
The regulator has introduced a new system under the revised regulations “Standards of Quality of Service (Wireline and Wireless) and Broadband (Wireline and Wireless) Services Regulations, 2024” with categories of Rs 1 lakh, Rs 2 lakh, Rs 5 lakh and Rs 10 lakh for different scales of violations.
The new norms replace three separate regulations – quality of service (QOS) for basic and cellular mobile services, broadband services, and broadband wireless services.
Discount will have to be given in case of outage
As per the new rules, telecom operators will have to provide a discount in rentals for postpaid customers and extend the validity of connections for prepaid customers in case of a network outage in a district. TRAI said if an essential network outage continues for more than 24 hours, the service operator shall provide a proportionate discount in rentals as per the subscribed tariff offering for the actual number of days of service outage to the postpaid customers registered in the affected district in the next billing cycle.
Network outage of more than 12 hours will be counted as one day
The regulator will count network outage periods of more than 12 hours in a calendar day as a full day for calculating rental discounts or extension of validity. Telecom operators will be given a week’s time to restore service.
