Crowd-sourcing helps Airtel ease network woes

It started as a means to be more transparent about network quality. Now, Airtel’s Open Network project has become an efficient way to deal with issues such as call drops and dark spots in coverage through crowd-sourcing of information from millions of mobile users.

Based on inputs gathered from 6 million users, Airtel says it has been able to upgrade over 9,000 sites at various locations and over 30,000 existing sites have been optimised to resolve network-related issues.

Launched in June, the Open Network initiative made public Airtel’s entire mobile network information to customers through an interactive online interface and asked for their feedback to improve the network.

“We have received requests from 6 million users since we launched the project. Thousands of leads for installation of new network sites were also generated. Such an exercise has not been done anywhere in the world,” Gopal Vittal, CEO, Bharti Airtel, told BusinessLine . “We are going to use this platform to do a number of things aimed at making our network more efficient.”

Network quality depends on a number of factors, including the type of device you have, the distance you are from the nearest cell site, applications you are using and indoor coverage.

While telecom operators have Network Optimisation Centres and other platforms that constantly monitor network quality, they may not be able to detect all these aspects.

Open Network Airtel received feedback and suggestions from millions of customers across multiple Open Network touch points — the Open Network website, myAirtel app, Airtel Call Centres and Airtel Stores.

Based on the feedback, Airtel engaged with these customers to improve and optimise the network for them and their surrounding areas.

Vittal said that network has become the centre of Airtel’s way of life and even the sales team has access to data related to the performance of the network in their area.

“We believe that with this initiative, we have made a small but positive beginning towards improving our network and hope that going forward more customers will join us. Airtel is fully committed to building a world-class network that is future ready and will deliver a great mobile experience to our customers,” Vittal said.

The Open Network portal will now have a new section — “Network Stories”. This section will detail the actual on-ground changes that have happened after the open network campaign launch, where Airtel has delivered an improved network experience. The section will also have testimonials from satisfied customers.

With the launch of the Open Network initiative in June, Airtel took the lead in establishing complete transparency about its mobile network and opening itself to customer scrutiny and feedback with the aim of improving its network.

Customers can now see network coverage/signal strength in any location across India through a colour coded interface that shows if coverage is excellent, good, moderate or non-existent.

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