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The level of congestion at the point of interconnection (PoI) is a key indicator of the quality of service offered by telecom operators. It signifies the ease with which a customer of one network is able to communicate with a customer of another network.

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has been monitoring the level of congestion at PoIs between various service providers on a monthly basis. It recently released the interconnection status between operators' networks in the 23 telecom circles for the third quarter of 200708. The benchmark, as per the Quality of Service (QoS) Regulation of July 2005, has been set at less than 0.5 per cent.

According to TRAI, there has been some improvement in the quality of service provided by mobile operators with a marginal reduction in the number of PoIs with congestion in the quarter ended December 2007.

Of the 315 PoIs, the level of congestion was more than 5 per cent in 153 PoIs in December as compared to 158 in September 2007. The number of PoIs with more than 10 per cent congestion was 105 in December compared to 111 in September 2007. The number of worstaffected PoIs with congestion levels of more than 40 per cent was 26 compared to 37 in September 2007.

Operator-wise analysis
While the mobile subscriber base increased from 209 million in September 2007 to 233 million in December 2007, the number of PoIs with congestion decreased from 348 to 315.

The number of congested PoIs between private operators and BSNL also improved, decreasing from 217 in September to 203 in December 2007. The same is true for PoIs among private operators, with the number of congested PoIs coming down from 129 to 108 during the same period.

Among private operators, Reliance Communications had the largest number of congested PoIs (134) followed by Bharti Airtel (57), Dishnet Wireless (36), Vodafone Essar (27) and Tata Teleservices (22).

Circle-wise analysis
The circles most affected by PoI congestion are Maharashtra, Bihar, Gujarat, Rajasthan, West Bengal and Tamil Nadu. Maharashtra was on top of the list with 43 PoIs with congestion (>0.5 per cent). Kolkata was the only circle with zero PoI congestion as of December 2007.