After VLR, TRAI cracks down on M-VAS defaulters

A day after Bharti Airtel and Idea issued a joint statement to the media regarding their views on TRAI's report on actual subscriber data from the Visitor Location Register (VLR), dual-technology players — offering GSM and CDMA have come under scrutiny for inflated subscriber numbers.

Among the dual-technology players, RCom, TTSL and Vodafone have especially come under fire by GSM operators for suspected mismatching of subscriber data for their GSM and CDMA subscribers, and thus hoarding spectrum. For example, according to the TRAI report, Reliance CDMA has only 68.26% and Reliance GSM has 66.35% of active subscribers on its network against total number of subscribers reported by the company, while TTSL is reported to have 46.18% VLR subscribers and 44.01% Tata Indicom VLR subscribers. Vodafone is reported to have a 74.99% proportion of VLR subscribers according to the TRAI website.

Defending itself against these allegations, TTSL said in a statement, “Tata Teleservices has taken on the most stringent parameters for VLR reportage, that's on a peak-period of just seven days, while most other operators are calculating their VLR figures on much longer periods, of 30 days and so on. Going forward, TTSL will also be reporting its VLR figures on the basis directed by DoT - that will provide a true picture and a just comparison of VLR and other parameters.” RCom and Vodafone did not comment on this issue.

According to the TRAI website, out of the total 687.71 mn wireless subscribers, 482.89 mn subscribers were active subscribers in VLR on the last working day of the month i.e, 30th September 2010. The total active VLR numbers excludes the CDMA VLR figure of BSNL. The service provider has not provided the VLR figures corresponding to their total CDMA subscriber base of 5.78 million. The proportion of VLR subscribers is approximately 70% of the total wireless subscriber base reported by the service providers.

Commenting on these figures, Bharti Airtel and Idea Cellular had issued a joint statement clearly targeting dual-technology players that read, “The first ever Visitor Location Register (VLR) report from TRAI, which captures the number of active customers on mobile networks, nails the canards and lies spread by a particular set of telecom operators falsely alleging that established and performing GSM operators have been reporting inflated customer numbers. The TRAI report exposes the double standards of these operators. Paradoxically, they are the ones who have inflated their own numbers' as evidenced in the report of their VLR records establishing a very low active customer base both for their long established CDMA operations and the relatively new GSM operations.

With close to 90 per cent active customers for Bharti and 88% for Idea, we have maintained high reporting standards to serve genuine information needs, rather than spurious propaganda needs. We welcome this new initiative of the TRAI to capture the real active telecom user base in the country.” Spice also has a record of 89.87% VLR subscribers.

Greenfield operators who are still to roll-out services in certain circles, despite having received spectrum for these circles more than a year ago, may also face some trouble with the new VLR report. Some of the VLR subscriber figures as reported on the TRAI website for greenfield operators are: Etisalat — 43.55%, Unitech-30.91%, Videocon— 38.87% and S Tel — 24.33%. Interestingly, despite Loop's claims of being the number one GSM operator in the country, accoring to the TRAI report, its proportion of VLR subscribers stands at only 48.21%, while Aircel has 59.09% VLR subscribers.

And going a step further with the crackdown on defaulting operators, TRAI chairman, Dr J S Sarma said in a statement today, the Authority was aware of the key issues faced by the M-VAS industry and would soon take measures to address them. “We will definitely look into these issues and we will soon come out with consultation paper to address them,” he said.

berylm@cybermedia.co.in