Govt considering dropping Covid pre-call announcements from phones after 2 yrs

The COVID19 awareness precall audio announcements set by telecom operators at the start of the pandemic may soon become historyAfter almost two years of raising awareness about the disease the government is now actively considering the removal of the COVID19 precall messages after receiving representations that audio clips have served their intended purpose and are delaying critical calls during emergenciesOfficial sources said the Department of Telecommunications DoT has written to the Union Health Ministry requesting it to drop these precall announcements and caller tunesIt cited representations received from Cellular Operators Association of India COA as well as mobile subscribersThe health ministry is now considering removal of these audio clips in view of the improved pandemic situation in the country even as other measures for spreading public awareness about the safeguards against the viral disease will continue an official source saidThe instructions for implementation of COVID19 precall announcements and caller tunes to Telecom Service Providers were issued by DoT following directions received from the Union Health MinistryThe telecom service providers TSPs have been playing the precall announcements and caller tunes related to coronavirus to spread awareness amongst citizens and tell them about the precautions and vaccination to be taken during the pandemicAfter the passage of around 21 months these announcements have served the intended purpose of awareness creation amongst the citizens and serve no value now The message being played across networks invariably results in holding up and delaying critical calls from going through during emergencies and ends in consumption of precious bandwidth resources This overloads the TSPs network and creates a significant delay in call connection the DoT said in a letter written recently to the Health ministry citing the representationsIt also impacts customer experience and many have approached the TSPs to deactivate these as it is a hindrance when the customers need to make urgent calls the letter said adding many complaints through RTI have requested to deactivate the RBTs ring back tone as the citizens are not able to connect to the people in case of emergenciesThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever