New Delhi: State owned telecom public sector undertakings (PSUs) -Mahanagar Telecom Nigam Limited (MTNL) and Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) have failed to meet service quality benchmarks according to subscribers, even as overall level of quality of telecom services were found to be poor, a latest survey by telecom regulatory authority observed.

"The quality of telecom service in the country is fairly unsatisfactory and needs an overall improvement in all aspects," Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) chairman M S Verma said while making public the findings of the quarterly survey.

The survey, conducted by Indian Market Research Bureau on behalf of TRAI, found the overall level of quality of basic service to be poor although the private operators were found to be providing comparatively better quality of services than incumbants.

As far as the cellular mobile services were concerned, the survey said that the operators need to focus on improvement of redressal of customer complaints particularly on billing and accumulated network downtime.

Asked if the regulator would impose penalty on operators, who failed to meet the quality norms set by the regulator, Verma said, "TRAI has no powers to enforce penalty but we would ask the operators to give us a plan for achieving the standards. It has to be a co-operative effort."

The quarterly survey covered the period of October to December 2001.

PTI