No phone jam for response teams during crises

During emergency situations like natural disaster, the government’s response and recovery operations are often delayed because of congestion in the telephone network. This may end soon, as the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) is likely to come out with recommendations for a policy on priority routing of calls of persons engaged in response and recovery operations during emergency situations.

The Indian Institute of Technology-Bombay (IIT-B) has given some suggestions to the government that can help solve such problem and ensure that VVIP numbers are not jammed during the telephone traffic congestion following emergency situations.

The TRAI had issued a national consultation paper in May, stating that during emergencies enforcement agencies, state machinery and those involved in rescue and response should have preference in calls. The Trai had asked for comments from all stakeholders.

“Among others, IIT-B had also given its suggestions to the government. We have been discussing the issue with the government in this regard,” former director general of police, Maharashtra, K Subramanyam said.

“The basic issue is that when the network is congested, how do you give priority? There are various ways to give priority. All these ways basically require special SIM. During the emergency situations, the network would automatically read that the said SIM is a priority number and would appropriately allocate resources in the network. Some changes in the equipment are required,” said Professor Abhay Karandikar from IIT-B, who has worked on the subject.

“Three suggestions for priority calls were suggested, of which two laid emphasis on priority calls within a single operator’s network. This kind of priority has a problem. For an instance, if the police use services of one operator, while the municipal corporation uses services of another operator, then they might have priority calls within their own networks, but would probably not work while contacting each other. As per the suggestion made by the IIT-B, we have asked for introduction of notion of Emergency Mobile Virtual Network Operation,” he said.

“The government is yet to take a decision on which model has to be taken for consideration. Once approved, this policy will be applicable to everyone who is on a telephone network in India,” said Sadanand Date, IGP- Force One.