The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh / Hyderabad News : Mobile phones fail to get connected

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Thursday, May 08, 2008
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Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad

Mobile phones fail to get connected

It’s impossible to call anyone between 7 and 9 p.m. from anywhere in the city

Network does not follow: With network expansion not keeping pace with the increasing number of subscribers, mobile phone users are put to much inconvenience.

HYDERABAD: “The number you have dialled is busy. Please try later,” comes the sweet yet irritating reply of a female voice from the other side. And if one is lucky enough to make a call, the signal goes bust or the voice is garbled beyond recognition.

Or simply, the pip-pip tone continues without actually connecting the call. It’s common for us to endure such trauma while making mobile phone calls, irrespective of who is the service provider. This problem gets worsened every day, peculiarly in the evenings, if one is to go by mobile users’ complaints.

Sluggish augmentation

While mobile users are increasing by the day, network augmentation by increasing cell phone towers to support load and signal by the service providers continues to be sluggish. It’s impossible to call somebody between 7 p.m. and 9 p.m. from anywhere in city. It’s even tougher to call someone, who is outside your own network.

For instance, for two years, BSNL’s CellOne has not been able to expand its network fully in city. There is also the issue of providers selling more connections, despite not having the ability to support. Network expansion has never been commensurate to the increasing mobile users.

Black spots

More annoying is the fact that the signals are weak even outdoors. There are several ‘black spots’, regions where the signal is weak in twin cities. Tank Bund, Himayatnagar, Narayanguda flyover, NTR Marg near Necklace road, St. Ann’s in Secunderabad, to name a few, are the notorious black spots. The worrisome aspect is that the number of black spots is increasing steadily, with more and more mobile phone users complaining of loss of signal even in their homes.

It’s quite an experience to call from Madhapur. “It’s tough to call between 7 p.m. and 10 p.m. from Madhapur. Weak signal in a building is understandable but the same thing happening outside is unpardonable,” says an angry Melvin Fernandez, working with Deloitte.

Typically the user-load and placement of the tower are two aspects on which the quality of reception or calling depends. Other factors are terrain, weather or the instrument. However, more than anything else, quality of the call depends on the network.

The CDMA-based Tata Indicom has over 300 cell-phone towers in the twin cities. “Maintaining the network is a daily process. In the next few months, we are adding another 60 to 70 towers in twin cities. Network problems are everywhere but we are trying to offset such problems by taking up new towers in the future,” a Tata Indicom spokesperson said.

“Network has to be monitored on a daily basis. If more calls are made from a particular area, then the system would crash. Typically, a cell phone tower supports 1,000 users. But the number of callers is always huge. We are monitoring our network and adding new towers despite problems,” says GM (Cell One) G. V. Reddy.

Finding a site for a tower is also an issue. “We are the market leaders and have a network of 5,000 towers in the State. A regular check of the network is done. Getting a site for a tower and the legal wrangles associated with it is also an issue we deal with,” an Airtel spokesman says. Airtel will not, however, disclose the number of towers it has in the State capital, while Idea officials maintain that they will need time to respond to queries in this regard.

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