Network congestion is only getting worse

NEW DELHI: India’s teledensity is improving by the hour and the country has joined the prestigious 100-million mobile club. Good news both. But the bad part is, the level of congestion between telecom operators is getting worse.

The number of point of interconnections (PoIs) having congestion has increased 58% from 390 in January, to 616 in May, according to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai).

In July 2005, the regulator had notified that a congestion level of over 0.5% between networks would be a breach of quality of service standards.

The Trai parameter implies that not more than one call out of 200 should face any congestion problem.

However, in reality, the congestion levels are alarming, at times even touching 100% — or nearly every call facing a hiccup — in some parts of the country.

The Trai congestion report for January to May 2006 shows that phone subscribers are facing congestion due to lack of interconnection with Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL), which has the largest network in the country.

For instance, Bharti Airtel’s congestion level, where the PoI is with BSNL, touched a high of 86.21% in Sasaram (Bihar); 94.4% in Jaunpur (Uttar Pradesh); and 89.11% in Churu (Himachal Pradesh).

In the case of Hutchison Essar, the congestion level was recorded at 87% in Gazipur, where again the PoI is with BSNL.

Similarly, with BSNL as the PoI, Reliance Infocomm reported 100% congestion at Durg, and 95.40% at Pune. Others such as Idea Cellular and Tata Teleservices have also shown over 80% congestion levels in some parts of UP and Bihar, when PoIs are with BSNL.

But there’s some good news as well. Bharti’s congestion level in Shimla dropped from 19% in January to 11.66% in May.

Also, in Bikaner and Kota, congestion has been reduced from 38.28% and 41.53%, respectively, to 0% each.

In the case of Tata Teleservices, Alwar has shown a drop from 19% congestion in January to 9.65% in May. Reliance Infocomm’s congestion level in Patna has reduced from 20.5% in January to 1.4% in May.

PoI congestion in the network is due to inadequate junctions between the two networks and this leads to loss of calls and also results in poor quality of service to telecom consumers.

Teledensity of the country is pegged at 13.95, and there are a total of 153.37 million telecom subscribers. While there are only 47.42 million fixed phone users, the number of mobile subscribers is much higher at 105.95 million.

The private telecom industry is discussing ways to set up an interconnect exchange, on the lines of the “Telehouse” in Europe, US and Canada.