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Our Bureau

Panel set up to resolve interconnection row

CELLULAR TOWERS

New Delhi , July 30

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) said that the congestion levels for mobile services have reached alarming levels. A report from the telecom regulator has pointed out that the number of locations where the congestion levels have increased beyond acceptable levels has doubled over the last six months.

TRAI said the congestion levels have increased due to inadequate interconnection between operators. "The number of points of interconnection having congestion has increased from 390 in January 2006 to 616 in May 2006. The result of the monitoring reveals that in a number of areas, the degree of congestion between the operators is alarming. In a number of cities, the level of congestion between the networks of different operators is far more than this benchmark and the number of such places are increasing," it said.

Monitoring congestion

The telecom regulator has been monitoring the level of congestion at the Point of Interconnection (PoI) between various service providers on a monthly basis. This parameter signifies the ease by which a customer of one network is able to communicate with a customer of another network. This parameter also reflects as to how effective is the interconnection between two networks.

The benchmark notified by TRAI for this parameter is less than 0.5 per cent. This means out of 200 calls between two operators only one call should face congestion problem.

In contrast, the levels of congestion between private operators and BSNL in some places was as high as 100 per cent. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Communication has set up a committee comprising representatives from BSNL and the private operators to resolve the issue over points of interconnection. TRAI had earlier asked BSNL to give interconnection to the private operators.

Apart from inadequate interconnection, the exponential growth in subscriber base is also adding to the traffic.

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