Trai to announce stricter norms for call disruptions, video jitters on 5G

India’s 5G services are expected to see strict benchmarks for call disruptions and interruptions in video streaming and calling, along with other critical metrics, in the forthcoming telecom regulations.

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai), having concluded consultations with telecom operators on this matter, is expected to announce the regulations governing the quality of 5G services within the next two months. The telecom regulator will also revise the current quality standards for 4G services, according to a report in the Financial Express.

This holds importance considering that telecommunication companies have onboarded nearly 200 million users to their 5G networks within 18 months of their launch. Presently there are no standards established to check the performance and network quality of 5G.

Currently, 5G users encounter various challenges including poor call quality, call drops, call muting, inability to connect to 5G despite activating phone settings, and negligible disparity in speeds.

The report quoted an official as saying, “We are looking at certain benchmarks against which we will measure issues related to voice calls such as call drops, lag in calls, unclear voice, etc.”

The official added that the issues are arising because of packet drops and the same needs to be strengthened.

Packet dropping refers to the loss of small data units transmitted from a specific source to a destination across a network. This issue significantly impacts the network’s overall performance. In certain instances, the received packets experience delays, thereby impairing their quality.

Trai to introduce jitters monitoring

The Trai will incorporate jitters into its parameters for the first time, enabling the monitoring of data flow fluctuations. The regulator said this parameter is important for time-critical applications such as video calls and high-quality video streaming, the report stated.

According to the draft regulations, the Trai aims to implement an average latency of under 100 milliseconds for both 4G and 5G networks over a one-month period. Additionally, it said jitters should be under 50 milliseconds and the call drop rate should be below 2 per cent, with a more detailed approach. Currently, the latency benchmark stands at under 250 milliseconds.