After over 10 million mobile complaints between January and March 2016, the Indian telecom regulator TRAI is considering creating an independent authority, or an ‘Office of Ombudsman’. Download the TRAI's consultation paper on: Complaints/Grievance Redressal in the Telecom Sector (pdf). In addition, the DoT and TRAI together received more than 38,000 individual complaints from subscribers whose grievances were not resolved by their telecom providers since 2013. Note that this consultation comes a time when telcos were accused of masking call drops with a workaround to make calls remain connected even when there is no or poor coverage; while the SC struck down TRAI's suggestion of Re 1 for every call drop in May. The questions posed in the consultation paper are below, and the submissions have to be sent to cacommentstrai@gmail.com by 18th August, 2016. Counter comments will be allowed till 26th of August, 2016. Although historical data of complaints received by telcos and the regulator denotes a rise in complaints, TRAI mentions that this could be credited to the rise number of subscribers over time. However, it points that the number of complaints referred to the appellate authority—a committee which addresses consumer disputes/complaints that weren’t resolved by a telco’s customer care—has not necessarily depicted an increase. “What is notable is the variation amongst the TSPs when it comes to the number of appeals filed as compared to the numbers of complaints registered. Such a disparity points out to the fact that the TSPs have implemented and are operating the complaint/ grievance…
