Student Edition   Industry Edition  
 
Telecos struggle with Achilles' heel: Quality

India may be the biggest telecom story across the globe right now, but when it comes to missed calls and network errors, it's rather a dismal tale to tell. The world's fastest growing telecom market is grappling with inadequate infrastructure, resulting in poor voice quality, dropped calls and, of course, harassed customers.

Thousands of crores have been invested in the sector, but more money has not translated into better quality of service for users. The biggest roadblock is spectrum or the range of electromagnetic radio frequencies used in transmission of voice, data and television.

Currently in India, initially Global System for Mobile communication (GSM -- a type of cellular technology) operators get 4.4 Mhz of spectrum while Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA -- another type of mobile technology) operators get 2.5 Mhz of spectrum.

Once operators cross certain milestones, they are eligible for additional spectrum. Operators with 10 lakh or more subscribers are eligible for a total of 10 Mhz in the case of GSM and 5 Mhz in the case of CDMA. Since CDMA technology carries the voice in small packets, it can carry about five times more traffic, hence the lower spectrum allocation for CDMA operators.

However, the spectrum is still falling short of requirements given the rate of growth of mobile users (average addition is close to 3m per month)."Apart from poor call quality, the lack of adequate spectrum also results in calls becoming more expensive as we have to invest in more infrastructure," claimed a telco official.

For instance, cell sites (locations where base station equipment and their antennas are put up) should ideally be 600-800m apart from each other to ensure there is no interference in calls. "But due to inadequate spectrum, we have sites within 100m of each other, resulting in poor call quality," the official added.

Bharti Tele-Ventures, India's largest private telco, had a cell site count of over 14,500 at the end of the quarter ended September 2005. "Till FY '05 we had a total of 10,000 cell sites and plan to double this in FY06." an Airtel spokesperson told ET.

Hutch, which operates in 13 circles, has over 11,000 cell sites across the country. Idea Cellular CEO Vikram Mehmi said his company had 640 cell sites in Delhi and has a total of 3,600 in the eight circles where it operates. "We will be putting up over 1,500 more cell sites by March '06 across all eight circles," he added.

The capital intensive telecom sector has seen huge investments till now. Bharti had invested Rs 18,875 crore as on 30 September '05 on telecom infrastructure. The company is looking at spending $1.2 to 1.3b during the current fiscal. Idea has invested Rs 6,500 crore since its inception.

According to industry estimates, Reliance had put in Rs 14,000 crore till March '05 while Tata Teleservices had pumped in Rs 11,800 crore by the same period. However, huge investments have neither translated into great service quality for users nor have helped telecom operators to expand as they desire. Apart from spectrum allocation, the telcos also face opposition from local authorities while putting up cell sites in some areas.

"We are ready with cell site infrastructure. But we can not put them them up in areas like Lutyens Bungalow zone in Delhi, Aarey Colony and Navy Nagar in Mumbai and other similar areas because of environmental and security issues. This will obviously result in poor voice quality when the subscriber is travelling in that area," said an operator.

The telcos' efforts to provide good connectivity are also hindered due to lack of sufficient points of intersection (PoI). "We don't get PoIs from BSNL. Especially in non-metros, enough PoIs are not available. In such a case, landline calling mobile phone or vice versa face maximum problems," said another official at a telecom company.

Last month, telecom regulator TRAI had pointed to the severe lack of interconnections, inadequate number of cell sites and towers as the reason for the poor call quality. "Operators are providing coverage from remote base stations. As a result, the strength of signal in some areas is not sufficient to mature a call," TRAI had said in its report.

(www.tmcnet.com)

 
Trends | Archives | Current News

© Amity Edumedia. All Rights Reserved.
Powered By AKC Data Systems (India) Pvt. Ltd.
Private Policy | Disclaimer