Cellular mobile network congestion rises at alarming levels: TRAI

The staggering additions to mobile phones in the country are resulting in Indian phone users struggling with the increase in network congestion, which has shot up from 390 to 616 Points of Interconnections (PoIs), TRAI said on Friday.

Kolkata, Anand, Tarantaran and Hoshiarpur recorded 100 per cent congestion levels, the telecom regulator said, adding that the worst affected POIs, where congestion levels was 80 per cent or more, came from private operator to BSNL.

The congestion in percentage for calls from Bharti, Hutch, Reliance Infocom Limited, Idea Cellular Limited and Tata Tele to BSNL in Sasaram (86.21 per cent), Himantnagar (93.03 per cent), Junagarh (89.17 per cent), Surendernagar (88.26 per cent) and Jammu Tax Level1 (80.24 per cent).

The network gets jammed in Shillong-Home Subs (82.90 per cent), Sirohi (89.40 per cent), Churu (89.11 per cent), Nagaur (87.58 per cent), Jaunpur(94.40 per cent), Hamirpur (92.50 per cent), Gazipur (87.00 per cent), Durg (100 per cent), Pune (95.40 per cent), Balasore, (83.50 per cent), Alwar (80.90 per cent), Bhadohi (100 per cent), Kolkata (100 per cent), Anand (100 per cent), Dharampuri (100 per cent), Hoshiarpur (100 per cent), Tarantaran (100 per cent), Shahjapur (80.73 per cent) and Patna NLD (84.47 per cent).

The POIs congestion in the network is on account of inadequate junctions between the two networks and this leads to loss of calls and consequent poor quality of service to the consumers.

TRAI has been monitoring the level of congestion at POIs 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 the interconnection between the two networks is.

The benchmark notified by TRAI in the QoS Regulation of July 2005, for this parameter is 0.5 per cent. This means out of 200 calls between two operators only one call should face congestion problem. 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.

TRAI has been releasing data on POI Congestion from time to time. The POI congestion Report for the month of January, 2006 to May, 2006 shows that the number of POIs having congestion has increased from 390 in January, 2006 to 616 in May, 2006.