Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications
Wednesday, Oct 05, 2005
Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications Wednesday, Oct 05, 2005 |
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Telecommunications Info-Tech - Regulatory Bodies & Rulings Mobile network congestion set to worsen: TRAI Inefficient interconnect system the culprit Our Bureau
New Delhi , Oct. 4 THE growth in cellular subscription may not be good news any more with the congestion on network expected to further deteriorate in the coming months. A study by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) released today said the congestion on mobile networks has reached an alarming stage with no sign of improvement. The report has found that the congestion levels in a large number of cities is 20 times higher than the stipulated quality of service norms. TRAI has said the congestion is primarily due to an inefficient interconnect system between private mobile operators and state-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd that has not kept pace with the exponential growth in subscriber base. "With the exponential increase in the number of subscribers in last two years and the number of operators in each service area, the issue of efficient and adequate interconnection between operators has become very important. The benchmark for the inter-network congestion level for an acceptable quality of service is less than 0.5 per cent. In a number of major and minor cities, the level of congestion between the networks of private operators and the BSNL network is far more than this benchmark and the number of such places are increasing," TRAI said in a release. In January, there were about 24 places having congestion level more than 10 per cent i.e. twenty times worse than the benchmark. In July, the number of such places increased to 86. "A major cause of concern is that the congestion is largely between the private operators and BSNL. In the last one year, TRAI had discussed this issue with all cellular operators including BSNL, but the situation has shown no perceivable improvement," TRAI said. The prerequisite for an efficient interconnect is availability of adequate number of junctions between the operators. The degree of congestion between the operators is alarming in some areas. For instance, in Patna, the congestion level of Bharti and Reliance is 35.4 per cent and 61.5 per cent respectively. In Agra, the congestion level of Bharti, Idea and Reliance with BSNL is 56.9 per cent, 48.3 per cent and 30.2 per cent respectively.
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