Mint Explainer | Why state-owned BSNL is wary of Trai's proposed service quality rules

Summary

BSNL says tighter compliance requirements and higher financial disincentives could add to pressures it faces, making it harder to meet its public-service obligations and expand its network.

After the telecom regulator proposed changes to quality of service rules, state-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) said tighter compliance requirements and higher financial disincentives could add to pressures it already faces, making it harder to meet its public-service obligations, expand connectivity in rural and difficult-to-reach areas and continue its 4G network rollout. Mint explains the issues at hand.

What has Trai proposed?

In August, Trai proposed amendments to the Standards of Quality of Service of Access (Wireline and Wireless) and Broadband (Wireline and Wireless) Service Regulations, 2024.

Under these changes, telecom companies would have to publish more accurate online coverage maps, allowing consumers to check the expected signal quality in their area before choosing a plan. Trai wants to introduce tighter limits on silent calls, where a connection remains active but the audio drops. It wants billing disputes to be resolved in seven days instead of four weeks currently.

If a network outage lasts for more than 24 hours, affected customers would be entitled to a bill rebate or extension of their prepaid plan's validity. To make it easier for consumers to compare operators, the regulator has proposed publishing a single Quality of Experience score that reflects indicators such as network performance, call quality and customer service.

Trai has proposed higher financial penalties for inaccurate compliance reports and other violations, with penalties of as much as ₹10 lakh for repeated violations. For 5G services, operators would have to monitor network capacity more closely and inform Trai at least 21 days before creating new network slices, which are virtual networks that can be customized for various use-cases.

Why has BSNL opposed Trai's proposal?

BSNL says the new requirements could add to its compliance costs when it is investing heavily in network expansion.

"Each incremental QoS (quality of service) obligation proposed in the draft amendment... and more granular compliance reporting, requires dedicated capital and recurring operational expenditure on measurement, monitoring and reporting systems," it told Trai. "BSNL is presently not resourced to absorb this extra expenditure without harming the capex earmarked for network rollout and service improvement in commercially challenging areas."

The operator pointed to its public-service character and its role in rural and difficult-to-reach areas. One of its main concerns is the one-week deadline for resolving billing and charging complaints.

BSNL has questioned the proposed Quality of Experience score. It operates extensive infrastructure across difficult, remote and non-remunerative terrains where private operators often do not deploy services, making uniform commercial benchmarks unfair and inaccurate.

BSNL says delays in restoring services can be caused by factors outside its control, including third-party damage to infrastructure, power failures, floods, fires and other natural disasters. It asked Trai to exclude such circumstances when assessing compliance and imposing financial disincentives.

What are BSNL's views on Trai's financial disincentives?

BSNL has argued that Trai's proposed "financial disincentives" do not change their "substantive character" as monetary punishment.

"If penalties truly improved quality of service, the countries that fined their telecom companies hardest would have the best networks in the world. In fact, it does the exact opposite. Every single rupee extracted as a penalty is a rupee pulled directly out of infrastructure investment," BSNL said during an open house discussion on 30 September.

BSNL is also concerned that one problem could attract multiple disincentives. A single fibre cut, for instance, could lead to an outage penalty, a reporting-mismatch penalty and a late-reporting penalty. It has proposed a "one root cause, single disincentive" approach.

The company has objected to treating a mismatch of more than 1% between reported figures and Trai's calculations as false reporting, saying such differences can result from manual or system-related errors.

What are private operators saying?

Bharti Airtel, Reliance Jio and Vodafone Idea have opposed several of Trai's proposed quality of service rules, saying some are technically difficult and operationally impractical. They argue that coverage maps are based on computer models and cannot always match actual signal conditions, which can change because of weather, buildings, hills and trees. They say requiring 98% accuracy is therefore difficult to achieve.

On silent calls, operators say some pauses in audio are intentional and are part of how networks save battery and manage capacity. They are concerned that treating them as network faults could lead to inaccurate results. Perceived muting can stem from user handsets, faulty microphones, mobile application processing or far-end interconnecting networks rather than the operator's radio network.

On 5G slicing-related service quality norms, operators argue that 80% cell utilization limits could restrict how they manage network traffic, limit network flexibility, hinder innovation and affect ease of doing business.

What kind of penalties has Trai imposed for service quality norm violations?

In FY26, Trai imposed a financial disincentive of almost ₹1.88 crore on four telecom operators for violating quality of service norms, higher than the ₹19 lakh it imposed in FY25, according to calculations based on the regulator's website.

Penalties imposed on BSNL related to violation of service quality norms were the highest at ₹89.5 lakh in FY26.

The regulator has also imposed financial disincentives on operators for violating the Telecom Commercial Communications Customer Preference Regulations, 2018, to protect mobile users from unwanted spam calls and SMSes.

Telecom service providers often challenge Trai's penalties in the appellate tribunal.