Congestion in network despite TRAI warning

NEW DELHI: Despite warning from the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), the mobile operators have failed to improve the quality of service.

TRAI had issued a warning on congestion in the network at Point of Interconnection (POI) in the month of November 2005, but without any results.

TRAI today issued a POI congestion report for the month of October- November, 2005 making a comparative report. The congestion report shows that at 404 POIs the level of congestion is more than the benchmark of 0.5%. Out of these 404 POIs, in 201 POIs the level of congestion is more than 10%. The number of such POIs where the level of congestion was more than 10% was 153 POIs in August 2005, which increased to 193 POIs in September/October, 2005.

The POIs congestion in the network is on account of inadequate junctions between the two networks and this leads to frequent blocking of calls and the consequent poor quality of service to the subscribers. TRAI said that in number of big and small cities, the level of congestion between the networks of different operators is far more than the prescribed benchmark and the number of such places is increasing. It points out that it is mainly due to delay in augmentation of inter network junctions.

In some of the major cities like Patna, Agra and Lucknow, Jaipur, Chennai and Meerut, the level of congestion between the networks of the different operators continues to be very high.

The TRAI has earlier issued a direction on November 29, 2005 to all Cellular Mobile Service Providers to ensure by December 31, 2005 that the Quality of Service (QoS) parameters, including the level of POI congestion, in its network should be strictly within the benchmark laid down by the Authority. The benchmark notified by TRAI in the QoS Regulation of July 2005 for this parameter is less than 0.5%. This means out of 200 calls between two operators, only one call should face congestion problem.