The Hindu Business Line : Mobile network congestion getting worse: TRAI report

WITH more than three million mobile subscribers being added every month, the number of cities where network congestion levels are higher than the permitted benchmark has gone up to 193.

According to the latest report on quality of service issued by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), the primary reason for the congestion is lack of adequate interconnection between the private cellular operators and State-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd.

The report said that while in August 2005, there were about 153 cities with congestion levels of more than 10 per cent — 20 times worse than the benchmark, in September 2005, the number increased to 193 and in about 72 of them, the congestion level was 40 per cent or more.

As per TRAI's "Regulation on Quality of Service of Basic and Cellular Mobile Telephone Services, 2005", the benchmark for congestion level is less than 0.5 per cent. TRAI has also asked the operators to meet the quality benchmark by December 31.

The report pointed out that in August, about 244 points of interconnection (where the network of two different operators connect) were not meeting the benchmark, whereas in September, the same had increased to 394.

In some of the major cities such as Patna, Agra, Lucknow, Jaipur, Chennai and Meerut, the level of congestion between the networks of different operators continued to be very high.

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