Airtel, most congested network in India

NEW DELHI, INDIA: Leading telecom player Bharti Airtel emerged as the most congested mobile network in the GSM space in October-December 2008, with competitor Vodafone close behind, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) said.

As per an analysis by TRAI for the period under review, Airtel had 14 congested points of interconnection (POI) - the geographical location where two networks interconnect and exchange traffic.

Against this, Vodafone had 12 POIs, followed by Reliance Communications and Idea with 11 each, and Dishnet Wireless with eight.

According to TRAI, the benchmark for the level of congestion at POIs between various networks is kept at less than 0.5 percent. This means, of every 200 calls between two operators, only one call should face a problem.

This also reflects as to how effective is the inter-connection between two networks. This also means that at 14 POI, Airtel tops the list of call drops.

During the said period, the mobile subscriber base has increased from 315.31 million in September 2008 to 346.89 million in December, while the number of POIs with congestion has decreased from 129.

The telecom circles or states being most affected due to congestion are Bihar with 22 PoIs, followed by north-eastern states, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh-East and Uttar Pradesh-West - each having five, TRAI said.