Section 9 in Regulation on Quality of Service of Dial-Up and Leased Line Internet Access Service, 2001
9. Interpretation.
- In case of disputes regarding interpretation of any of the provisions of this Regulation, the decision of the Authority shall be final and binding.Explanatory MemorandumSection A(i)Service activation time will be measured from the time a request for service alongwith requisite payment is received by the ISP till the service is activated.(ii)Time to access is the time elapsed between giving of connect/dial command till the receipt of 'log-in' prompt, from the ISP node, on the customer's terminal equipment (PC/workstation etc.).(iii)Unavailability of the ISP node is accumulated duration of time, the ISP node is inaccessible due to system down condition, i.e. total failure of Router, Server, Local Area Network etc., thereby, making the node non-operational for the purpose of Internet access. The specified period for measurement of this parameter i.e. total system down time, is one month.(iv)Based on inputs received during the consultation process, the Authority would recommend adoption of an engineering approach to dimension the number of time slots required to connect the PSTN node to the ISP node, to avoid congestion and consequent customer dissatisfaction due to repeat attempts, which result in ineffective use of operator's network elements.(v)At Present, the link between the PSTN node and the ISP node (RAS) is being provided by adopting a 'rule of thumb' approach. Typically, one time slot is provided to cater to the traffic generated by 20 customers. Since such an approach may result in either over-provisioning or under-provisioning of resources (time slots on E1 links or physical pairs), it is mandated that the Basic Service Operators (BSOs) measure the Grade Of Service, every quarter, by suitable manmachine commands and, if required, the ISP should augment the resources to guarantee a Grade Of Service of I in 100 on the link as specified in Section IV of this regulation.(vi)The Authority has mandated a Grade Of Service norm for the circuit group connecting the PSTN node to the ISP node, as congestion on any link can degrade the performance of other links and nodes in the Public Switched Telephone Network of the BSOs. Any circuit group congestion in the PSTN results in reattempts being made by the subscriber to gain access to his called destination, thus causing congestion elsewhere in the network.Section B(i)Latency also called Round Trip Delay (RTD) is generally measured between two Designated Routers over a period of one month. For this purpose, a large number of sample measurements are taken over a month and average latency is calculated from these sample measurements. The benchmarks indicated are between two Designated Routers i.e., one in India and another abroad. Two different values have been indicated to take into account transmission delays of the two types of media i.e. OFC and Satellite.(ii)Packet loss is the percentage of packets lost between two Designated Routers. Packet Loss is measured by averaging sample measurements for a month.(iii)To calculate availability, the unavailability of the leased line access service is required to be calculated first. Unavailability is the accumulated period of the time the access service was not available to the customer. This period will be subtracted from the total service period to get the time period for which the service was available during the month. The availability will be calculated by taking the ratio of the available time period and the total service period. Typically, this should not be less than 99%.Section C(i)This regulation is the result of a consultation process to bring out all aspects of Quality of Service (QOS) relating to Internet Access. Discussions with Service providers, Consumer Organizations and general public were held in various parts of the country to get inputs from the stakeholders. Written comments and other types of feedback received from stakeholders have been duly taken into account in arriving at QOS parameters and benchmarks, recommended in this regulation.(ii)Network performance parameters like Time to access, Probability of access, ISP node unavailability, Grade Of Service between PSTN node and ISP node shall be measured on sample basis by the Authority from time to time, directly or if it so chooses, through an independent agency appointed by the Authority. Suitable software tools for authentic measurements of these parameters by man-machine command shall be employed.
