BSNL North India customers' outgoing calls blocked for 8 hours

Much to their hassle, BSNL's pre-paid subscribers in Punjab, Chandigarh, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh and Rajasthan could not make outgoing calls for about eight hours today due to a technical snag.

 

"Pre-paid customers in northern zone were not able to connect their calls as there was some problem in our intelligence network at Bangalore which updates the customers' balance," BSNL Principal General Manager (Ludhiana) C S Bhanot told PTI.

 

The problem was restricted only to prepaid customers, as the postpaid customers and Closed User Group (CUG) could make calls.

 

He, however, said the affected customers could receive their calls from any netowrk and also send and receive SMS.

 

"The services of pre-paid customers were adversely affected in Punjab, UT Chandigarh, Uttar Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Rajashthan and Haryana," he said.

 

According to BSNL officials, problem arose at about 10 am in the morning and it could only be rectified at about 6 pm.

 

"A long time was taken to detect the fault which was located in Bangalore, thus leading to delay in restoring the dial up connectivity," a BSNL official said.

 

Customers complained that they were not able to dial up any number on their mobile handsets and the call was not getting through.