Poor network burns hole in BSNL pockets

Ahead of its $4.5-billion GSM expansion tender, state-owned BSNL has taken private telecom equipment suppliers Ericsson and Nortel to task, saying the poor quality of their network had caused massive revenue losses in just two months.

The principal general manager of Calcutta Telephones, in a letter to the top management, has asked them to issue instructions to both Ericsson and Nortel to resolve all problems and "till such time, withhold all payments to both the vendors. Stopping of payment is absolutely necessary to recover the loss of revenue caused to Calcutta Telephones."

Ericsson is the supplier of IN (intelligent network), while Nortel has supplied mobile switching centre (MSC) and home location register (HLR) in various parts of the country.

According to PGM of Calcutta Telephones, "Today the service being offered is not of commercial quality and severe interruptions are being observed frequently creating utmost dissatisfaction to our customers and churning of about 30,000 customers in last two months."

BSNL is not in position to attract more customers and SIMs are lying unutilised in most of its counters. This has occurred for the first time in Calcutta Telephones division since launching of CellOne, BSNL's mobile service. Similar complaints have also been received from some other parts of the country like Punjab.

Due to Ericsson's in network the pre-paid services have been affected badly, the official said.

Some of the problems being faced by subscribers were failure of coupon recharge facility for pre-paid mobile, sudden reduction in pre-paid amount and negative balance, the Calcutta Telephone division said, adding that the cases were unresolved till recently.

The success rate of incoming call had fallen to dismal 20 per cent while for outgoing calls the rate was 30 per cent from pre-paid mobile connection.

BSNL's Kolkata division also shot off a letter to Ericsson, mentioning about the malfunctioning of its in system in the east zone.

Senior officials of BSNL in Delhi too said that they encountered problems due to expansion of operations and they are talking to the private vendors to ensure that quality networks were supplied. Efforts were on to rectify the problem.