Mobile phone makers hit out at COAI, says devices not to blame for call drops

Dismissing cellular operators' charges that device quality is responsible for call drops, mobile handset makers have asserted that phones sold in India "diligently" follow all the prescribed norms.

Terming call drops as a "very serious issue", Indian Cellular Association (ICA) said inadequate infrastructure, and not device quality, is responsible for the problem.

Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) had recently demanded that the government chalk out a mechanism to control the quality of mobile handsets in India as the role of devices in service quality and call drops has not been looked into.

ICA -- which counts leading handset makers such as Samsung, LG and Apple as its members -- shot off a letter to the Telecom Secretary recently stating that the mobile handset industry is already "over-regulated".

"We would like to reiterate that the mobile handset industry is already over-regulated and should not be subject to any more regulations...," ICA said.

"If the mobile operators get their infrastructure...in order and come up to speed on subscriber aspirations, very few problems will arise," it added.

The war of words between the two associations erupted after COAI drew telecom department's attention to the purported absence of regulations governing quality of handsets.

COAI had said that there was no visibility or control over the large number of "rogue devices affecting the network quality", and had sought Department of Telecom's "urgent policy intervention" in the matter.

Dismissing COAI's claims over certain cases of degradation in data in dual SIM LTE mobile devices, ICA said the tests conducted did not confirm to any standards.

"It is a well understood and age old principle that a common criteria/standard should be fixed and advised to the industry and testing should be based on that," ICA National President, Pankaj Mohindroo said in the letter.