Trai mandates telcos to compensate users for outages, raise penal amount

Telecom operators will have to compensate subscribers in case of service outages for more than 24 hours at a district level under the new quality of service rules issued by the sector regulator Trai on Friday.

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) has also increased the penal amount to Rs 1 lakh from Rs 50,000 for failing to meet each quality benchmark under the new rules.

The regulator has introduced a graded penalty system of Rs 1 lakh, Rs 2 lakh, Rs 5 lakh and Rs 10 lakh for different scales of rule violations under revised regulations --"The Standards of Quality of Service of Access (Wirelines and Wireless) and Broadband (Wireline and Wireless) Service Regulations, 2024".

The new norms supersede three different regulations -- Quality of Service (QoS) for basic and cellular mobile services, broadband services, and broadband wireless services.

In case of a network outage in a district, telecom operators will need to provide a rebate on rent for postpaid customers and .