Trai's MyCall app allows you to rate the quality of your phone calls

Telecom regulator Trai on Monday launched a new app, MyCall, that enables mobile phone users to rate the quality of their calls. The regulator has also upgraded its `Do Not Disturb' and MySpeed apps for subscribers.

The MyCall app will help mobile phone users rate their experience about voice call quality in real-time after completion of a call and help Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) gather customer experience data along with network data, Trai said in a statement.

After a call ends, a pop-up will appear requesting users to rate the call based on their experience. The caller will have to select the rating in the form of stars and indicate whether the call was made indoor, outdoor or while travelling. Callers can also provide additional details such as noise or audio delay and mark a call drop, if they believe that is how the call got terminated.

Trai has also upgraded its 'Do Not Disturb' app with new features like an intelligent spam detection engine and updates about action taken on complaints within the app.

At present, there is a framework for DND registry that allows telecom subscribers to block unwanted communication from telemarketers. Reaching out to such subscribers can result in a heavy fine for telemarketers.

Besides, Trai has rolled out an update to its MySpeed app, which allows customers to measure 3G/4G data speeds and send the results to the regulator.

What puts MySpeed ahead of other similar apps is that it allows users to immediately report poor services to the regulator, instead of wasting time on calls with the operator, often with no solution.

The step has been taken as there were a lot of complaints about discrepancies between the speeds the telcos claim and charge their cutomers , and the actual speeds that users get.

The step has been taken as there were a lot of complaints about discrepancies between the speeds the telcos claim and charge their cutomers , and the actual speeds that users get.

At present, the MySpeed app is free to download and use, and does not show any in-app advertisements as well. This is a nice change from the Speedtest app, which shows banner adverts within the app at multiple points, unless you buy the premium app version.

"We think crowd sourcing is the best way to get customer feedback, better and cost effective than surveys or other studies, and we've tried to leverage this technology tool in the past for bringing out the true picture of the impact of the services," Trai chairman RS Sharma said on Monday.

"We're trying to improve the collection methodology where Trai will pick up the data charges for providing the feedback to the regulator," Sharma added.

Trai said it would not lower its guard on call drops, and together with the government has kept a close watch on call quality through initiatives like drive tests and automated call system. Last year, when instances of call drops spiked, the government and the regulator made a co-ordinated effort to tackle the issue.