Telcos reluctant to compensate for call drops
MOBILE PHONE operators gave back only a third of the minutes payable to users because of massive call drops in the year to September, highlighting their reluctance to compensate customers, according to the telecom regulator.
A call drop is a situation in which calls are cut off before the speaking parties have finished conversation or one of them has hung up.
Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) yesterday published a report, which showed that there were 222.15 crore call drops in total in the last 13 months and operators were supposed to give back 69.38 crore free minutes as compensation. However, the top three operators only returned 22.06 crore minutes to their customers.
According to the regulation, if customers face more than two drops a day, they will receive compensation from the third drop and will get one minute back for every drop.
The telecom regulator introduced the compensation system in 2016 amid huge call drops in different parts of the country across all operators.
Mobile phone users are facing severe call drops and the overall service quality has deteriorated.
Commerce Minister Tofail Ahmed raised the issue in Parliament on Sunday and expressed dissatisfaction about the call drop related to market leader Grameenphone.
The telecom regulator's report, however, said the call drop situation has improved in September compared to the same month a year ago.
In September last year, call drop totaled 21.21 crore times and it came down to 18.02 crore times in September this year.
Robi's call drops increased to some extent compared to what was last year, while Grameenphone, Banglalink and Teletalk have all improved the situation.