Network Jam Hits Prepaid Customers Of Cellular Service In Karnataka / Bangalore

[Nirvana 4]

I just came across this article posted on Financial Express regarding the recharging problems faced by prepaid customers. I often face this problem in Bangalore while doing an e-recharge for both RIM and also for AirTel. Instead of spending money over advertisements and trying to lure more customers into their base, these operators should improve their infrastructre first

Network jam hits prepaid customers of cellular service in Karnataka

Wednesday, April 12, 2006 at 0000 hours IST

BANGALORE, APRIL 11: Prepaid customers of cellular service providers in Karnataka are facing problems while recharging their mobile currency through easy recharge (e-recharge) facility. In many instances it takes hours to top-up the talk time and there have been cases where it is not done at all. Retail vendors are putting the blame on ‘network jam’ for the delay.

E-recharge was introduced in Karnataka in the second half of 2004. According to cellular operators, the concept met with huge success, bringing down the inventory cost of retail vendors and providing simple recharge options to the customers.

However, with operators coming out with new schemes and the cost of handsets dropping significantly, the number of customers have been increasing by leaps and bounds both in Karnataka and across the country. Official figures reveal that the total number of cell phone users in India during March last fiscal was pegged at 6,91,93,321 compared to 4,10,25,940 a year ago. This has impacted the quality of service adversely with majority of operators having inadequate capacity to tackle the growing number of customers.

Says Srijit Mukherjee, a Bangalore-based engineer, "During last three months whenever I tried to recharge it is getting credited after few hours. This is causing a lot of inconvenience as I have to pay the money without any assurance that the amount will be credited to my account. Also, I have to wait for hours before making a call".

This has been the case with majority of the cellular service providers. With nearly 80% of cell phone users being in the prepaid category the pressure on servers have increased substantially over the past few years. "Usually the reason for such a problem is because of the overload on the e-recharge server due to constant increase in the number of subscribers opting for this service", said spokesperson of Reliance Infocomm. However, he said that Reliance currently has adequate capacity to face the situation.

According to Deepak Mehrotra, chief executive officer, Bharti-tele Ventures, Karnataka the number of prepaid customers have substantially increased over the last few years putting pressure on the national servers. However, he assured that Airtel has increased the capacity of its servers estimating the increase in number of customers over next six to eight months and it has improved the service quality.

Edited April 13, 2006 by Nirvana