Indian Interconnection Congestion Alarming - Report

The Indian telecoms regulator, TRAI has been monitoring mobile network congestion at the interconnection points between the operators. The operators are required to achieve a benchmark of < 0.5 %, notified by TRAI in the QoS Regulation of July 2005. The result of the monitoring reveals that in a number of areas, the degree of congestion between the operators is alarming In a number of cities, the level of congestion between the networks of different operators is far more than this benchmark and the number of such places are increasing.

The POI congestion report for the period July - September, 2005 shows that there has been increasing congestion between the networks of cellular mobile operators. In September 2005, at 193 locations, the POI congestion level was more than 10%. The comparative figures for July and August 2005 were 86 and 153 respectively.

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. The TRAI has also, issued a direction on 29th September 2005 to all Cellular Mobile Service Providers to ensure, by 31st December 2005, that the Quality of Service parameters, including the level of POI congestion, in its network should be strictly within the benchmark laid down by the Authority."

Posted to the site on 6th December 2005