Telecom subscriber numbers in the country are growing fastest in the world, but network congestion and resulting call drops are increasing at an alarming speed as well.
Congestion far more than the benchmark across many cities
NEW DELHI: Telecom subscriber numbers in the country are growing fastest in the world, but network congestion and resulting call drops are increasing at an alarming speed as well. A study by the telecom regulator has shown that the degree of congestion between the operators is far more than the benchmark across many cities. While points of interconnection (PoIs) showing congestion between private service providers and BSNL has risen from 300 in December 2006 to 337 in March 2007, those among private operators have gone up from 89 to 162 in the same period.
According to the benchmark, anything over 0.5% of congestion level between any two operators is a violation. That is, out of 200 calls, not more than one call should face congestion problem in a network.
In the first three months of this year, the circles/states that have shown poor performance due to network congestion are Bihar, Assam, Rajasthan, MP, North-East, West Bengal, UP East, Orissa, Gujarat, Karnataka, Kolkata, Maharashtra, TN and J &K. The number of points of interconnection (PoIs) having congestion has increased to 499 in March 2007, from 389 in December 2006.
Also, the level of congestion (degree of bad quality calls) has risen significantly. For instance, of the 499 PoIs showing congestion, the level of congestion is over 5% in 245 PoIs in March 2007, compared with 199 PoIs in December 2006. So, instead of one out of 200 calls, 10 out of 200 calls are getting affected across 245 PoIs now.
Also, the level of congestion is more than 10% in 183 PoIs in March, against 137 in December last. This implies that 20 out of 200 calls are not getting through due to congestion across 183 PoIs.
Then, there are 46 PoIs where the congestion level is more than 40%. That is, 80 out of 200 calls on this network are not being completed successfully. The number of PoIs with this extreme level of congestion was 39 in December 2006. India has 212 million telecom subscribers, 171 million of which are mobile users, as of end of April 2007.
The government has set a target of 250 million phones by the end of 2007.
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