Trai issues notices to telecom firms on congestionOur Economy Bureau / New Delhi March 07, 2006Faced with increasing congestion in the telecom networks of private mobile operators, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) today issued show-cause notices to six service providers - Bharti Tele-Ventures, Reliance Infocomm, Reliance Telecom, BPL Mobile and Spice Communication.Clarifying that all mobile operators in the country failed to meet the benchmarks specified by it, Trai said notices were being issued only to those in whose networks the congestion had increased between September-December 2005. In the cases of other service provides, there was no deterioration in regard to congestion during this period, Trai said.The benchmark prescribed by Trai for the point of interconnect (POI) congestion between the networks of two operators is less than 0.5 per cent. Trai has also said, despite issuing directions to all cellular mobile service providers to comply with the quality of service parameters by December 31, 2005, there had been a sharp increase in network congestion."In September, there were 237 POIs having congestion above 5 per cent and this increased to 249 in December 2005. It was also noticed that in some places, the level of congestion of some operators was in the range of 80 per cent to 95 per cent. This means that of every 100 calls, 80-90 calls fail leading to total chaos in inter-network communications, customer dissatisfaction and a near-collapse of services," Trai said.Private operators blamed Bharat Sanchar Nigam saying the failure of the PSU to ensure timely inter-connection was the primary reason for the increase in congestion.Countering this argument, Trai said, "It was the responsibility of operators to take necessary action for timely augmentation of POIs through mutual discussions or through legal measures. When mutual discussions failed, operators should have approached the Telecom Dispute Settlement Appellate Authority for resolution."Replying to the Cellular Operators
