Communication Jammed When Cellphone Needed Most!

[Honest 836]

Communication jammed when cellphone needed most!

28 Jul, 2008, 0225 hrs IST, ET Bureau

NEW DELHI: Tried reaching your friend or loved ones in Bangalore or Ahmedabad following the blasts? Frustration would be an understatement. Tens and millions of India’s mobile customers were confronted with a similar scene all over again—mobile networks, the lifeline of communication, get jammed when the user needs them the most.The problem is unlikely to disappear soon.

Industry experts and executives recommend the following when faced with such crisis situations: use fixedline phones; send SMSes rather than calling; and if you can’t get through, wait for a while before calling again.

But why does the problem occur in the first place?

Sources in telecom regulator TRAI put the blame on telcos and the government. “Operators had failed to put systems in place to ensure to ensure that all calls are re-routed when networks are jammed. Only the Department of Telecom has the powers to ask telcos to put disaster recovery management systems in place. Trai therefore cannot interfere in this space,” a source with the regulatory body explained.

Executives with telcos however refuted TRAI’s contention. “Indian regulations do not allow us to re-route calls. For instance, when our switches in Bangalore got jammed, we had spare capacity on switches in several cities in North India. But, regulations do not allow us to re-route traffic on say a switch in Chandigarh and get it to back to Bangalore,” explained a top executive with a leading mobile operator.

The spokesperson of another telco said that it was not possible to build networks with large amounts of spare capacities anticipating such a scenario (as in Bangalore or Ahmedabad). “This will make building mobile networks unviable,” he said.

An executive with another telco added that even in the case of the London and Madrid blasts, mobile networks in these cities went down temporarily. Yet another executive with a telco said while operators often shared networks at such times to overcome congestion, the spectrum (radio frequency) crunch in all major cities was a major roadblock.

[Arun 795]

well, thats what happens when telecom operators are "over selling" already.

[Honest 836]

^^^

Very correct my dear Arun Ji. They just need to sell, sell and sell. Nothing else. They even do not bother if their customers do have problems like the above.

Regards.

[rajat8676 0]

Maybe TRAI should come out with the recommendation that for every call that does not go through because of network congestion, the operators should refund some amount (say 50 paise) to the consumer. Then the operators will see the light and keep capacity and customers in sync.

[shashank 8]

Not only mobiles but even landlines were jammed.

But still condition wasnt bad coz onnet call were working fine. I had Vodafone and i could call other Vodafone numbers without any problem.And my dad had Tata and he could call tata numbers.

[commonman 228]

In the face of crisis, landline is often the best. They work even when there is no power to run the mobile towers or there is no charge in the mobile.

[drmadhu 87]

Very correct

In recent bomb blast condition in Ahmedabd mobile network of the all operator is jam when call from reliance messages says network is busy now please try after some time.

Edited July 29, 2008 by vijaymalhotra_2007

[Honest 836]

‘SMS may be the best way to communicate during a crisis’

Business Line

New Delhi, Sept. 14 The serial bomb blasts that rocked Delhi on Saturday collapsed the mobile networks across the city, with users calling their families and friends to enquire about their well-being. While consumers complained that the cellular networks jam when they actually need to make emergency calls, operators say that nothing much can be done to tackle such peaks in usage that lasts for a few hours after any major incident. But what makes our communications services so vulnerable?

According to technology experts, there are at least four different situations when the operators, the Government or technology cannot do much to keep you connected. The biggest and most common cause is when the telecom network gets congested in a crisis situation, just like it happened on Saturday in Delhi after the serial bomb blast. Customers in other cities like Ahmedabad and Bangalore also had to deal with a congested network after bomb blasts rocked these cities recently.

Higher load

While most telecom networks have the capacity to function even if there is a 200 per cent increase from the normal day peak hour traffic, in times of severe crisis, operators record a 500 per cent increase in traffic.

“In such a situation, when the load is higher than the capacity of the network, the system collapses just like it would in the case of electricity-generating units. However, some of the operators have designed their network in such a way that the system does not collapse but the excess traffic gets rejected, which gives a busy tone in case a subscriber calls into the network,” said a leading telecom technology vendor.

The phenomenon is not common to India only. Telecom networks in London and New York were jammed after the bomb blasts in the sub-way train last year and the twin-tower tragedy respectively. Operators say that a similar surge in traffic is witnessed during New Year’s Eve or a festive season but since these are expected events, they get enough time to upgrade their networks.

“Events like bomb blasts or other natural calamities are unpredictable and it is too expensive a proposition for us to keep excess capacity in anticipation of such a crisis. However, we do deploy technology that can increase the capacity of voice calls up to 200 per cent and three times more short messages,” said a Delhi-based operator.

Short messaging

Operators said that a way to get around the problem would be to keep the calls short and communicate more using SMS in times of crisis.

“Short messaging takes less capacity than voice calls because in the latter, we have to provide a channel dedicated to the call whereas in messaging, the text can be sent by the network as and when capacity is available,” said a Mumbai-based operator.

[kshah 452]

its stupid to believ that sms can be sent when network is congested. During ahmedabad serial blast I could not send sms also. Sms went on network delivered only when voice started getting connected

[Sadikk 301]

Well this is not mostly congestion, Authorities jam it. as blasts in past were through Mobile connected to bomb.

So they jam it just to make sure if there's more bombs will not explode through calls made to them.

But its sad they never success in this, they jam it always after all the blast happens, for example 7/11 mumbai train blasts.