Smartbro Range, developed by Optinno Mobitech is a call drop management app that notifies and records all call drop instances occurring on a smartphone. It also alerts a user (on the dialing screen) if there is a risk of call drop due to low signal strength, or low battery backup. Users can track the number of call drops using smartbro Range; it calculates a ‘call drop percentage’ i.e. number of dropped calls divided by the total incoming & outgoing calls in a network. According to Sagar Bedmutha, CEO of Optinno Mobitech, this data helps track quality of service offered by an operator and more importantly, it helps establish the ‘Dropped Call Rate’ within a smartphone. The app is currently available for Android users only. Bedmutha told us that iOS and Windows Phone have certain constraints on application permissions, so it won’t be available on these platforms anytime soon. Why do we need such an app? The TRAI permitted a ‘Dropped Call Rate’ of less than or equal to 2% in India, and after conducting Independent Drive Tests (IDTs) across 7 cities in February, the regulator found that Dropped Call Rate was well above 2% (in all 7 cities) with Pune recording a whopping 36% (Tata 3G), and 17% (Airtel 3G). Telcos and telecom associations refuted TRAI’s tests with their own independent audit findings. “There is no solution to this…at first telcos argued that less number of towers and spectrum shortage were the reason behind call drops, and now after TRAI…
