Telecom News -- National

Bihar tops the congested POI list of Q109 : TRAI Report

The growth of mobile network is taking place at a very rapid pace and about 11.6 million subscribers are added every month. In order to ensure seamless interconnection, TRAI has been monitoring the level of congestion at the Point of Interconnection (POI) between various service providers on a monthly basis. This parameter signifies the ease with which a customer of one network is able to communicate with a customer of another network. This parameter also reflects as to how effective is the interconnection between two networks. The benchmark notified by TRAI in the QoS Regulations for this parameter is <0.5%. This means out of 200 calls between two operators only one call should face congestion problem. 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.

Cellular Mobile Service Providers have submitted their POIs Congestion Reports in TRAI for the months of April, May and June 2009.

• We have included only the Service Providers who do not meet the TRAI stipulated POI Congestion benchmark of <0.5% in any of their service areas.
  
  
• The POI Congestion Report analysis for the month of April, May and June 2009 shows that the performance of the CMSPs with respect to the congestion on POIs has improved in the month of June 2009 as compared with the performance in March 2009. During the period Cellular Mobile Telephone Subscriber base has increased from 391.76 million in March 2009 to 427.29 million in June 2009. The number of POIs having congestion has decreased from 76 in March 2009 to 42 in June 2009.
  
  
• Out of these 42 POIs in June 2009, in 27 POIs, the level of congestion is more than 5% as compared to 33 POIs in March 2009.
  
  
• The number of worst affected POIs where the level of congestion is more than 10% is 22 in June 2009, whereas it was 24 in the month of March 2009. Out of these 22 POIs, in 3 POIs the level of congestion is more than 40% whereas it was 6 in the month of March 2009.
  
  
• In respect of POIs from Private CMSPs to BSNL/MTNL, the number of POIs having congestion has decreased from 27 in March 2009 to 14 in the month of June 2009.
  
  
• During the same period, the number of POIs having congestion among the Private CMSPs has decreased from 49 in March 2009 to 28 in June 2009.
  
  
• Amongst the service providers as of June 2009, Dishnet Wireless have congestion in (20 POIs) followed by BSNL (8 POIs) and Vodafone (6 POIs).
  
  
• The Circles/ States more affected due to POI congestion are Bihar (9 no. of congested PoIs) followed by UP-East (7 PoIs), and Orissa (6 PoIs) .
  
  

The analysis of the degree of congestion in these POIs is given below:-

The POI congestion level between Private Service Providers and BSNL, and also among the Private Service Providers is given below in graphs: -

Number of POIs having congestion level between Private Service Providers and BSNL/MTNL

Number of POIs having congestion level among the Private Service Providers

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