The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Aircel subscribers hit roadblocks

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Aug 19, 2004

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Aircel subscribers hit roadblocks

By N. Ravi Kumar

CHENNAI, AUG. 18. Subscribers of Aircel Cellular, a leading mobile phone service provider with a customer-base of four lakhs, today experienced problems with the connection for long periods.

A common complaint among subscribers was their inability to make or receive calls for spells running into a few hours either at a stretch or intermittently. Some others said their incoming calls were automatically redirected to the voicemail box. A few more complained of delay in the functioning of the short messaging service (SMS), with the time taken for receipt of the messages extending up to even four hours.

These problems apart, the subscribers have been complaining over the last few months of inadequate coverage in some localities of Chennai, especially poor signals inside buildings.

On Wednesday several subscribers called The Hindu saying they did not receive any call on the mobile phone for hours. Many of them said they heard a recorded message saying that the `network is busy.'

The efforts of the subscribers to reach the customer care centre of Aircel also proved futile, as the line 98410-12345 was constantly busy.

On August 15, many subscribers said their phones went blank. A few of them, who contacted the customer care of Aircel, which also operates mobile service in the State, were told that it was due to site update work and that the service would be restored in a few hours.

Aircel, which provides mobile telephony in other parts of the State, took over the service operated by RPG in Chennai a few months ago.

Software bug

While denying that the problems had been persisting for many months, K.V.P. Bhaskar, Chief Executive Officer of Aircel, said there were irritants today for the subscribers. Attributing the issues faced by the subscribers today to a software bug that surfaced when the network capacity was being increased, he said: "We are not keeping quiet and are not sitting idle." The problem was being attended to immediately for providing a zero-defect service, including rectification to ensure faster delivery of SMS. Aircel was in the final leg of improving the capacity of the network (base stations and switches) and tuning up the system.

He said the company was conscious of the needs of the subscribers and was not merely building the subscriber base without creating the necessary infrastructure as "made out by the competition."

Today, the subscribers experienced difficulty in receiving or making calls as the congestion in the network led to more call attempts.

Aircel, which had been bought recently by Hutch, had announced a Rs.175-crore expansion programme in June.

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