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Mobile Call Drops, Indian CXOs Favor Landlines over Mobiles

ST Team
Thursday, October 1, 2009
ST Team
Picked the cell for an important business call and it got disconnected before you actually discussed the business? The situation has prodded Indian CXOs toshift towards landlines, reducing use of mobile phones in their business premises as they face the ever-increasing call drops rate. “I’ve shifted to fixed telephones now for all important business calls. Though they don’t offer mobility or have restricted mobility, getting someone to call on your office desk is the best practice and it is safer for business,” says Gagandeep Sapra, CEO of System 3 Group, a data center provider.

According to Hindustan Times-C fore survey, three out of five small businessmen say that they face call drops in two to three out of 10 calls. This is increasingly frustrating Indian firms that cannot afford dropped calls as it affects business. Corporate houses no longer have faith in using mobiles for business calls due to the poor service. Also, in India, calls are charged on the basis of 60 seconds pulse rate. So, if a call gets disconnected after three seconds the user will still be charged for the whole minute.

Around 63 percent respondents say call drops have seriously affected their businesses, the survey reports. “When you want to make an important call, you are unable to do it,” says Abhay Khanna, who works in his family-owned company RMS, a Delhi based power equipment manufacturer.

After receiving complaints from customers regarding call drops, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) wrote to telecom operators in February 2009 asking them to ensure deficiency in service does not inconvenience the subscribers. “The Authority sincerely expects that your enterprise takes necessary steps to reduce the incidences of call drops in the network and also to provide to the Authority by February 28, 2009 the measures taken to improve voice quality and reduction in call drop rate,” the letter said. However, so far no visible change is seen in the call drop ratio.
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