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| Please dial after sometime….but when? | | BSNL, Airtel will have to specify time when signal is clear | | Early Times Reporter
Jammu | Nov 26
"All lines to the route dialed by you are busy, please dial after some time". And when dialed after sometime, the computerized message says, "the subscriber is not reachable, please dial after sometime. This is what the subscribers of the cellular services in Jammu get to hear most of the times when they try to make a call from cell phones.
The Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd and its ace private competitor Airtel are these days virtually ruling Jammu and Kashmir. The report of task force on Jammu and Kashmir economy claims that the cellular service in the state is expanding very fast and is far ahead of many other states in the country. There is no doubt that the teledensity in Jammu and Kashmir is one of the highest in the country and just close to the national average.
Ironically, this expansion seems to be just in numbers and not in the quality. The cell phone service which came into Jammu and Kashmir nearly 10 years after it has covered almost all parts of the country saw a sudden fast expansion. The trend is still continuing. The BSNL which was initially a lone player in the market saw huge response of the consumers. This encouraged the Airtel to step into the terrains of Jammu and Kashmir.
However, in competition with each other, both cell phone operators have lost their commitment on the quality. BSNL and Airtel had started their services with an infrastructure and machinery which was which could have supported a certain limit of subscription base. Beyond that they were required to acquire more machinery and augment their infrastructure.
But in a mad market competition they are just selling out the umpteen connections every day with no corresponding improvement in the backup requirements. The net result is that the quality of service is declining day by day.
While it is almost impossible to get connected in first attempt –whether it BSNL or Airtel –but particularly after 6 in the evening it may takes from several times to even half an hour to get the call through. When contacted, a senior BSNL manager said that "it is some times due to bad signal". After all what is bad signal? When a subscriber is sold a connection it is responsibility of the service provider to ensure the proper coverage in the areas where service is applicable. At many places within Jammu city and particularly at outskirts where both BSNL and Airtel have thousands of subscribers there is no network coverage at all for most of the day.
"Most of the times we have to go to roof top and stand in corner where signal is little better", says Ashu Bhardwaj, a resident of Krishna Nagar locality in front of Science College.
Out in the region, the BSNL has taken its subscribers for a ride. Connections have been sold in hundreds and thousands, bills are forwarded and payments collected every month but there are hardly two or three days a month when the signal blinks. Poonch town and many areas in Kishwtar and Doda are the examples where there is no signal for weeks together. |
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