Battle against call drops: Bharti CEO writes to crowdsource cell sites

To combat the problem of ad hoc closure of cellphone sites, Bharti Airtel's managing director and chief executive Gopal Vittal has reached out to customers to help identify locations where it can set up towers.

In a letter to customers, Vittal writes: "If you face significant call drops in your locality, can you help us find a location for a mobile site in the vicinity?" All that consumers need to do is click on a link and help Airtel identify the location.

About 10,000 towers have been shut across the country, half of which are in Mumbai and Delhi, over health concerns. China has 1.4 million towers for 1.29 billion subscribers, while India has 420,000 for 900 million. Airtel says adequate mobile towers (cell sites) and spectrum are the raw materials a company needs to provide quality service.

Telecom companies are having to battle customer ire on one hand and deal with vanishing cell towers on the other. Over the past few months, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has been cracking the whip on operators for poor service, but Vittal's letter suggests the difficulty in putting up towers is impacting service.

In the letter, Vittal says: "Placing sites has become a serious problem in most cities due to misplaced fears of the impact of sites and air waves. In fact, as you read this, some of our sites are getting shut down across India."

India has among the most congested networks in the world.

It is the second-largest mobile phone market by users, but is well behind China (largest mobility market) in terms of infrastructure. For every million customers in India, there is only 0.1 megahertz (MHz) of spectrum available, while in most European countries it is three MHz to six MHz per million customers. On an average, Chinese telcos hold 60-100 MHz of spectrum, while Indian companies hold 13-15 MHz of spectrum.

The situation is likely to worsen as India starts consuming 60 times more data in the times to come. While the industry has added very little new spectrum, customer base has expanded over the past two decades.