The Indian Institute of Public Administration (IIPA) Panjab and Chandigarh (UT) Regional Branch, CUTS International Jaipur and the Department of Public Administration, Panjab University, Chandigarh jointly organized a Seminar on Quality of Mobile Internet Services: Policies and Practices on 07.10.2016. Prof. B.S. Ghuman, Honorary Secretary, Regional Branch while introducing the theme opined that maximum consumers are not satisfied with the quality of mobile internet service as slow internet and poor coverage are frequent problems. Telecom Regulatory Authority of India should formulate a policy having strong penalty provisions for the violators of quality of service by mobile internet service providers Shri Pradeep S.Mehta, Secretary General, CUTS International Jaipur while inaugurating the seminar said that data is the future for telecommunication services. JIO will be an entirely a data delivered service. Operators do not disclose complete set of information on technical parameters such as bandwidth, latency, etc. According to him, complete information disclosure would mean better quality of experience. Further capacity building of Civil Society Organization is essential so that they may act as Quality of Services (QoS) watchdogs. Collaboration with technical institutions for technical knowhow is also a welcome step. Ms. Neha Tomar, Senior Research Associate, CUTS International Jaipur; remarked that TRAI needs to revisit and effectively implement QoS regulation and adopt a nutrition label (disclosure of important/relevant information). Internet Service Providers (ISPs) should provide real time notification regarding mobile data consumption. Mr. Surinder Verma, Chairman, Citizens Awareness Group, Chandigarh in his presentation shared problems of mobile service users – unsolicited calls/unsolicited advertisements/ information/junk emails, call drops, radiations from towers. He also suggested that TRAI should audit complaints in order to check how many are resolved as per laid down parameters. According to Dr. Akshat Mehta, Assistant Professor, Centre for Police Administration, TRAI should start a dissemination campaign about quality of standards as common man is not aware of either the role of TRAI or QoS. TRAI must have penal powers to ensure adherence to QoS regulations. Dr.Col. (Retd) P.S.Sandhu,Secretary to Vice-Chancellor Prof. Shital Parkash, Sh. Paramjit Sahai, Mr. Nasser and Sh. D.V. Bhatia participated in the discussion. Shri B.S. Ojha IAS (Retd.) Chairman of the Regional Branch in his presidential remarks said that we have complaints with mobile internet services but not having readymade solutions and hence we should design new policy to solve the pending issues Dr. Bhawna Gupta proposed a vote of thanks |