In exercise of the powers conferred upon it under section 36, read with sub clauses i and v of clause b of sub section 1 of section 11, of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India Act,

REGD. No. D. L.-33004/99 The Gazette of India EXTRAORDINARY PART III—Section 4 PUBLISHED BY AUTHORITY No. 590] NEW DELHI, MONDAY, AUGUST 5, 2024/SHRAVANA 14, 1946 CG-DL-E-06082024-256104 TELECOM REGULATORY AUTHORITY OF INDIA NOTIFICATION New Delhi, the 2nd August, 2024 F. No. RG-17/(3)/2022-QoS.─In exercise of the powers conferred upon it under section 36, read with sub clauses (i) and (v) of clause (b) of sub-section (1) of section 11, of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India Act, 1997 (24 of 1997), the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India hereby makes the following regulations, namely:─ THE STANDARDS OF QUALITY OF SERVICE OF ACCESS (WIRELINE AND WIRELESS) AND BROADBAND (WIRELINE AND WIRELESS) SERVICE REGULATIONS, 2024 (06 of 2024) SECTION-I PRELIMINARY 1. Short title, commencement, and application.— (1) These regulations may be called the Standards of Quality of Service of Access (Wireline and Wireless) and Broadband (Wireline and Wireless) Service Regulations, 2024. (2) These regulations shall come into force with effect from 1st October 2024. (3) These regulations shall apply to all service providers, having- (i) Unified Access Service License; (ii) Unified License with authorization for Access Service; (iii) Internet Service Authorization under any License; and (iv) Authorization under the Telecommunications Act, 2023 for providing Access or Broadband Service: Provided that nothing contained in these regulations shall apply to an Internet Service Provider whose total number of subscribers as on last day of the preceding financial year does not exceed ten thousand or as notified by Authority by an order or direction. 2. Definitions.— (1) In these regulations, unless the context otherwise requires,─ (a) “Act” means the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India Act, 1997 (24 of 1997); (b) “Access Service Authorization” means authorization in the designated Service Area under the Telecommunications Act, 2023 or authorization thereunder or as defined in Unified License as applicable; (c) “Access Service (Wireless)” means telecommunication service provided through a wireless telecommunication under access service authorization; (d) “Access Service (Wireline)” covers collection, carriage, transmission, and delivery of voice or non-voice messages over the Public Switched Telephone Network in a licensed or authorized service area and includes the provision of all types of services except those requiring a separate license or authorization; (e) “Authority” means the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India established under sub-section (1) of section 3 of the Act; (f) “Authorization” means the authorization as defined in the Telecommunications Act, 2023; (g) “Broadband” means a data connection, through wireless or wireline access media, that is able to support interactive services including Internet access and has the capability of delivering the minimum download speed, as specified by licensor from time to time, to an individual subscriber from the point of presence (POP) of the service provider intending to provide broadband service; (h) “Broadband Service” means a data service provided using broadband data connection by Internet Service Provider under any license or authorization; (i) “Call Centre” means a department or a section or a facility established by the service provider for redressal of complaints and for addressing service requests of its consumers; (j) “Cell” means a radio network object that can be uniquely identified by a user equipment from a (cell) identification that is broadcasted over a geographical area from access (wireless) network; (k) “Cell Bouncing Busy Hour” or “CBBH” means the one-hour period in a day during which a cell in an access service wireless network experiences the maximum traffic and shall be decided as per the methodology specified in Schedule-I; (l) “Cell_Q(t)” or “Cell Quality of Service Performance Measure” means the tth percentile value in the set of performance against a QoS parameter corresponding to a Cell observed during different days of the assessment period; Explanation: If a Cell was operating for thirty days during an assessment period and computed Drop Call Rate (DCR) values were available for all these thirty days then arranging these thirty DCR values in ascending order and finding 90th percentile DCR value for that Cell would point to 27th DCR value (counted from lowest to highest DCR value); (m) “Consumer” means a consumer of a service provider falling in sub-regulation (3) of regulation 1 of these regulations and includes its customer and subscriber; (n) “Down Link (DL) Packet Drop Rate” or “DL-PDR” means percentage of voice traffic packets which are dropped by the network or lost in the network while transferring data on the downlink for Quality of Service (QoS) Class Identifier of voice traffic in packet switched (4G or 5G) radio access networks; (o) “Drop Call Rate” or “DCR” means the percentage of voice calls which once having been established are interrupted prior to their normal completion; (p) “Evolved-Universal Terrestrial Radio Access Network (E-UTRAN) Radio Access Bearer” or “E-RAB” means a user plane connection between User Equipment (UE) and Serving Gateway (SGW) in the LTE based technology; (q) “Jitter” means measure of the latency variation above and below the mean latency value; (r) “Latency” means the time taken by a packet to reach the receiving endpoint after being transmitted from the sending point in broadband service; (s) “License” means a license granted or having effect as if granted under section 4 of the Indian Telegraph Act, 1885 (13 of 1885) or the provisions of the Indian Wireless Telegraphy Act, 1933 (17 of 1933), as amended from time to time; (t) “Point of Interconnection” or “POI” means authorized interconnection point for ingress and egress of traffic among the interconnecting applicable systems of service providers in accordance with TRAI regulations or orders; (u) “Public Land Mobile Network” means an access service wireless network set up and operated under access service license or access service authorization, for the purpose of providing land-based access services (wireless) to the public and which provides communication facilities to subscribers using mobile stations; (v) “Public Switched Telephone Network” means a fixed line public telephone network providing a two-way switched telecommunication services to the general public; (w) “QSD(s,t)” or “Quality of Service Spatial Distribution” means the sth percentile value in the set of Cell_Q(t) values, against a QoS parameter, for all cells in a network during the assessment period; (x) “Quality of Service” or “QoS” means the indicators of the performance of a telecommunication network and the degree to which such network conforms to the standards of quality of service as specified in these regulations for specified parameters and shall be measured as per the methodology provided in Schedule-I; (y) “Quarter” means a period of three consecutive months ending on the 30th June, the 30th September, the 31st December and the 31st March of the financial year; (z) “Radio Access Bearer” or “RAB” means a service provided by the Access Stratum to the Non-Access Stratum for the transfer of user data between the User Equipment and the Core Network; (aa) “Radio Interface” means the interface between User Equipment and the Radio Access Network access point, which encompasses all the functionality required to maintain such interfaces; (bb) “Radio Resource Control” or “RRC” means a sub layer of radio interface layer 3 existing in the control plane which provides information transfer service to the Non-Access Stratum and is responsible for controlling the configuration of radio interface layers 1 and 2; (cc) “Regulations” means the Standards of Quality of Service of Access and Broadband (Wireline and Wireless) Service Regulations, 2024; (dd) “Service Provider” means any service provider to which these regulations apply; (ee) “Six Sigma” means a data driven statistical analysis-based approach for Quality Management System(QMS); (ff) “Stand-alone Dedicated Control Channel” or “SDCCH” means, a GSM control channel for signaling purposes where the majority of call setup occurs, which is used for communication between mobile station, i.e. mobile handset and Cell before such mobile station is assigned a Traffic Channel (TCH); (gg) “Tariff Offerings” means various tariffs offered by service providers to their subscribers including tariff plans, plan vouchers, special tariff vouchers, combo vouchers, top up vouchers and add-on plans; (hh) “Telecommunication” means telecommunication as defined in the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India Act, 1997 (24 of 1997); (ii) “Telecommunication service” means telecommunication service as defined in the Telecommunications Act, 2023; (jj) “Time Consistent Busy Hour” or “TCBH” means the one-hour period starting at the same time each day for which the average traffic of the resource group concerned is greatest over the days under consideration and shall be decided as per the methodology specified in Schedule-I.; (kk) “Traffic Channel” or “TCH” means a logical channel which carries user information; (ll) “Up Link (UL) Packet Drop Rate” or “UL-PDR” means percentage of voice traffic packets which are dropped by the network or lost in the network while transferring data on the uplink for Quality of Service (QoS) Class Identifier of voice traffic in packet switched (4G or 5G) radio access networks; (mm) “Voice over LTE” or “VoLTE” means voice call established, maintained and released using Internet Protocol (IP) Multi-Media Sub-System (IMS) in LTE or IMT-Advanced network; (nn) “Voice over New Radio” or “VoNR” means voice call established, maintained and released using Internet Protocol (IP) Multi-Media Sub-System (IMS) in IMT-2020 network ; (2) Words and expressions used but not defined in these regulations, but defined in the Act or the rules and other regulations made thereunder or in the Telecommunication Act 2023 or the license or the authorization or relevant International Telecommunication Union (ITU) standards or 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) standards, shall have the same meaning respectively assigned to them in the Act or the rules and the regulations or the Telecommunication Act 2023 or the license or the authorization under relevant Act or relevant ITU or 3GPP standards, as the case may be, in that order. SECTION II ADOPTION OF QUALITY MANAGEMENT FRAMEWORK 3. Design, implementation and management of Networks.- (1) Every service provider shall prepare a quality management plan, within six months of issue of these regulations, to adopt Six Sigma quality management practices for QoS management, which shall include quality of service aspects related to network availability, accessibility, retainability and customer services. (2) The quality management plan shall provide for required redundancies including power, transmission links, equipment, geo-redundancies in the core network and access network as per relevant standards to achieve end-to-