High congestion between service providers alarm TRAI

New Delhi, June 18 (UNI) The level of congestion at the Point of Interconnection (POI) between various service providers on a monthly basis has alarmed Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) as the number of POI congestions have increased from 389 in December 2006 to 499 in March 2007.

POI 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 Regulation of July 2005 for this parameter is less than 0.5 per cent. This means out of 200 calls between two operators only one call should face congestion problem.

TRAI 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.

Pointing out the deterioration, out of the 499 POIs in March, 2007, in 245 POIs, the level of congestion is more than five per cent as compared to 199 POIs in December, 2006.

The number of such POIs where the level of congestion is more than 10 per cent is 183 in March, 2007, whereas it was 137 in the month of December.

The number of worst affected POIs where congestion level is more than 40 per cent is 46 in the month of March, 2007 as compared to 39 POIs in December, 2006.

In respect of POIs from Private Cellular Mobile Service Providers (CMSPs) to BSNL, the number of POIs having congestion has increased from 300 in December 2006 to 337 in March 2007.

During the same period POI congestion among Pvt CMSPs has also increased from 89 in December, 2006 to 162 in March, 2007.

The Circles/ States badly affected due to POI congestion are Bihar, Asom, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, North East, West Bengal, UP-East, Orissa, Gujarat, Karnataka , Kolkata, Maharashtra, Tamilnadu and Jammu and Kashmir.

UNI