Telecom News -- National

TRAI releases POIs congestion report

The growth of mobile network is taking place at a very rapid pace and about 10 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 January, February and March 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 January, February and March 2009 shows that the performance of the CMSPs with respect to the congestion on POIs has deteriorated in the month of March 2009 as compared with the performance in December 2008. During the period Cellular Mobile Telephone Subscriber base has increased from 346.89 million in December 2008 to 391.76 million in March 2009. The number of POIs having congestion has increased from 66 in December, 2008 to 76 in March 2009 .
  
  
• Out of these 76 POIs in March 2009, in 33 POIs, the level of congestion is more than 5% as compared to 37 POIs in December 2008.
  
  
• The number of such POIs where the level of congestion is more than 10% is 18 in March 2009, whereas it was 27 in the month of December 2008.
  
  
• The number of worst affected POIs where congestion level is more than 40% is 6 month of December 2008.
  
  
• In respect of POIs from Private CMSPs to BSNL/MTNL, the number of POIs having congestion has decreased from 35 in December, 2008 to 27 in the month of March 2009.
  
  
• During the same period, the number of POIs having congestion among the Private CMSPs has increased from 31 in December, 2008 to 49 in March 2009.
  
  
• Amongst the private service providers as of March 2009, Reliance Telecom and Idea both have congestion in (18 POIs each) followed by Reliance Communications (16 POIs) and Vodafone (11 POIs).
  
  
• The Circles/ States more affected due to POI congestion are Bihar (13 PoIs) followed by Andhra Pradesh and Kolkata (each having 8 no. of congested PoIs), Assam and Himachal Pradesh (each having 7 no. of congested PoIs) and Mumbai (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

• Click below to get more details on the POI levels

Analysis - No. of POIs having congestion level License Service Area wise

Comparative POI Congestion level of Cellular Mobile Service Providers

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