The Hindu Business Line : Telecom networks jammed as New Year traffic peaks

New Year celebrations were dampened yet again with consumers having to face a jammed telephone network even as SMS traffic surged more than 250 per cent across the country compared to the traffic on any other day.

Though operators claimed that the capacity was beefed up to handle the huge increase in traffic, the fact is that most mobile users wanting to connect to their loved ones on New Year eve were left to deal with a congested telephone network.

While some consumers complained of receiving the same message from the same contact more than two times, others said that messages sent were taking more than half a day to reach its destination.

And those who were trying to call their friends at midnight the calls were just not going through.

Of course, the operators laughed their way to the bank with the networks running at full capacity.

Reasons behind the jam

So why do networks jam and why don't operators take measures to tackle it?

According to technology experts while most telecom networks have the capacity to function even if there is a 200 per cent increase from the normal day peak hour traffic, on New Year eve or during festive season like Diwali or even in the event of severe crisis like the floods in Mumbai, operators record a 300 per cent increase in the traffic.

"In such a situation when the load is higher than the capacity of the network, the system collapses just like it would in case of electricity generating units. However, some of the operators have designed their network in such a way that the system does not collapse but the excess traffic gets rejected, which gives a busy tone in case a subscriber calls into the network," said a technology expert.

Operators on an average get more than 1 million SMS on any day in a Circle such as Delhi but on New Year eve this could go up to 5 million.

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, which is responsible for safeguarding consumer interest, said that it does not have enough powers to enforce quality of service.

Despite consumer complaints, operators say that they are doing enough to meet the demand.

Operators said that they took a number of measures to reduce the burden on the network, which include withdrawing all schemes that offered cheaper SMS and withdrawing facilities like delivery report of SMS.

"We had augmented our network to handle the increase in call traffic and SMSs. During the peak traffic period, our network was fully operational and handled all calls and SMSs smoothly ensuring that our valued customers did not experience any inconvenience," said Bharti Airtel.

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