JOIN USCall drops: A towering crisis
It was a frantic last call, minutes before the flight take-off. But just when Jithesh got his mother online and began to talk, the call dropped.
His desperate attempts to reconnect failed. Repeatedly. Miles away, in the city’s heart, Savitha Rao pressed the mobile payment button to purchase a pricey bag. But the mobile data just wouldn’t load.
Mounting call/data drops have inevitably sparked a barrage of subscriber complaints. The city’s voracious appetite for smartphones and mobile data have pushed the service providers into a tight corner, private players and State-owned BSNL alike. Collectively, they lament: Inadequate mobile towers. The 32,000 towers spread across the city are just not enough.
No conclusive evidence
The problem is complex. A 13-member panel set up the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) might have found no conclusive evidence of any health hazard from the Electromagnetic field around mobile towers. But doubts persist about radiation, and not many want towers in residential areas.
This fear, despite clarifications by TRAI, Department of Telecom and World Health Organisation (WHO), remains strong. “There are cases where building owners have switched off signals and asked us to take out the towers because some kids in the vicinity fell ill. We cannot do anything,” says an Airtel Karnataka spokesperson.
This, the official says, has left the service providers in a fix. More towers are critical to ensure seamless conversations and data transfers. The explosive growth of mobile phones and subscribers with multiple handsets has injected a sense of urgency and desperation into the issue.
Government buildings
Pushed to a corner, service providers, including Airtel, Idea and Vodafone, have found a potential way out: Government buildings and structures of public sector undertakings (PSUs) spread across Bengaluru. They have approached the State IT minister to get access and instal towers atop these buildings.
The jury may still be out on the question of health hazards. But service providers face other teething troubles with the existing tower network in residential areas: Domestic litigations, mushrooming high-rises that totally block signals.
BSNL had to recently pull down over a dozen towers in the City. Reason: “Family litigations, as properties are passed from one generation to the next. For instance, the son would want to build another floor, taking out the tower,” explains a BSNL official, preferring anonymity.
On health hazards, he insists that there is no such danger. “Otherwise, why would a government agency jeopardise the well-being of the citizens? Would they deliberately spoil public health?”
Rajan Mathew from the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) reiterates this point as he cites reports from various organisations. “Besides, Telecom, Enforcement, Resource and Monitoring (TERM) cells have been checking mobile tower radiation. They have not found a single case to penalise,” he notes.
Nevertheless, towers have been pulled down, precisely on health grounds. “Fake WhatsApp messages are being circulated with no factual basis. But I have not found any reason to take down the tower,” says Anil Kumar, who had allowed a tower to be set up atop his two-storey house in Rajarajeshwarinagar. “So far, there have been no issues at all. The tower barely occupies a 10’ X 10’ space.”
Tower alternatives
Rising demands to cut the call drops give service providers no choice but to add more towers, somehow, somewhere. “There is no other alternative. We are increasing capacity of stations that are linked to these towers. But there is a limit, tower numbers have to rise corresponding to the growth in mobile connections.”
Each station could cater to up to 20,000 subscribers without call drops or service quality deterioration. But the mobile growth has far exceeded this capacity. And, unlike landlines, mobile infrastructure upgrade should take into account that the subscriber is on the move.
There is a need to create a channel for the subscriber’s call wherever he/she moves.
“If that person is travelling 40 kms, for the call not to drop, there should be a channel dedicated to him/ her in every tower along the journey path. There should be spare channel available,” explains the official.
To enhance signals, particularly where towers are just not possible or switched off, mobile operators have put up repeaters. These do boost the signals by 300 to 400 meters, but are limited vertically to six floors. Beyond that height, they interfere with signals from other towers.
On roads adjoining defence lands, call drops and data slowdowns have worsened with remedial action not bearing enough fruit. One option has been to fix atom cells dedicated to a particular building. But on roads such as Old Airport road near the Air Force Command hospital, this is not viable.