Concerned over the drop in quality of telecom services, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has recently brought out a report on the congestion levels experienced by private mobile operators at the points of interconnection (PoIs) for the period June-July 2006.

The level of congestion signifies the ease with which a customer of one network is able to communicate with a customer of another.

TRAI has been monitoring the level of congestion at the PoIs between various service providers on a monthly basis under a set parameter. The benchmark notified by TRAI in the QoS Regulation of July 2005 was pegged at <0.5 per cent, which indicates that out of 200 calls between two operators, only one should face congestion problems.

Going by this parameter, TRAI’s report reveals that though there has been some improvement since May 2006, the degree of congestion between operators is still way beyond the prescribed limits in a number of areas.

Based on the reports submitted by private service operators to the regulator, TRAI’s subsequent report for the two months (June-July 2006) highlights the following points (the last report by TRAI on PoI statistics was released in May 2006):

  • An analysis for the months of May-July 2006 shows that the number of PoIs having congestion decreased from 616 in May to 537 in July 2006.
  • Congestion at PoIs from private operators to BSNL decreased from 517 in May to 426 in July.
  • However, during the same period, the PoI congestion among cellular mobile service providers (CMSPs) increased from 99 in May to 111 in July. There has been an increase in the PoI congestion among CMSPs, particularly in Bihar, the Northeast, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal and Andhra Pradesh.
  • The circles/states majorly affected by PoI congestion are Bihar, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, the Northeast, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh (East), West Bengal and Andhra Pradesh.

According to TRAI, the PoI congestion in the network is on account of inadequate circuits between the two networks, which leads to loss of calls and the consequent poor quality of service. Operators, therefore, will have to rectify this problem by installing enough PoIs in collaboration with BSNL and other operators.