TRCSL ‘fixing’ laws for equal play
The Telecommunications Regulatory Commission of Sri Lanka (TRCSL) is fixing coverage and service quality on the voice in mobile telephone sector while enacting related laws to be in line with international best practices and gearing for number portability by year end.
The TRCSL is currently at the technical planning stage and preparing the required legal frameworks for number portability, Oshada Senanayake, Director General TRCSL told the Business Times on Wednesday. The public consultation on number portability was done on February 18, he said. TRCSL which is on target to launch it towards the end of this year has also come out with two major pieces of legislation. “We updated the quality of service (QoS) gazette after 18 years and also gazetted the Radio Telecommunications Terminal (RTT) rules,” Mr. Senanayake said. The telephony quality of service refers to lack of noise and tones on the circuit, appropriate loudness levels etc and includes grade of service.
The (QoS) deals with essentially customer service levels. For example how long a customer can be on hold by a telephone operator, the quality of the call, bill resolutions (how fast the disputes can be resolved) etc, QoS for data/ broadband is to be expected in the near future, Mr. Senanayake added.
He added that with the QoS rule the TRCSL issued the RTT rules in a gazette which defines the standards on phone models. “This ensures that Sri Lanka will not be a dumping ground for fake and sub – standard devices.” All products not approved by December 16, 2020 must have approval under the new RTT Type Approval Rules while all type approval certificates issued prior to December 16, 2020 under the old rules will expire automatically on June 17.
Mr. Senanayake pointed out that issues relating to the non utilisation of spectrum also affected the QoS in the voice. As some of the assigned spectrums couldn’t be used by certain operators due to the high number of court cases on spectrum allocation, which ultimately affected the QoS in the voice services, he said. “We had a record number of legal issues – as much as 15 + – were sorted.” Interference within the spectrum and between signals was done by installing required filtering technology.
Mr. Senanayake added that re-farming of spectrums has started now in a bid to overcome interference propagated by signals in neighbouring countries.
TRCSL will be introducing unlimited data packages submitted by almost all operators that complied with TRCSL directions, according to industry best practices across the world.
The regulator has found more than 2,000 dark spots which have weak signals. According to data received from the “Gamata Sanniwedanaya” programme launched December 2019, TRC has observed that 80 per cent of the 152 Grama Niladari Divisions (GND) don’t have broadband coverage. TRCSL, after sorting the Ratnapura district connectivity, has just launched the programme in the Kurunegala district which will ensure 1,6I0 GNDs connected with 4G.
Plans to launch the same in Anuradhapura, Matara and Jaffna are underway.