New Delhi, Nov. 6: The telecom regulator has listed Bharat Sanchar Nigam as a major culprit for network congestion in mobile and fixed line phones in the country.

A study released by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) said: “It appears that private operators have been quick to respond to interconnection needs. Some of them, however, have shown signs of congestion possibly due to the high growth rate. The problem is extremely acute with BSNL, whether it is interconnection to their fixed or mobile network.”

The paper has sought to reduce the time period for providing the interconnection from one year to less than three months. Interconnection is the lifeline of telecommunication network. The efficiency and quality of service suffers if interconnection is bad.

Technical, financial and commercial terms and conditions of interconnection play a vital role in ensuring effective link between service providers.

A senior Trai official said the study seeks to understand and highlight the reasons behind the increasing frustration among mobile users in connecting to certain operators.

The interconnect agreements between BSNL and other cellular service providers stipulates that a required interconnect capacity should be released within 12 months of payment.

“However, there are a large number of cases pending where even after 12 months, the required junctions have not been provided by BSNL,” a Trai official said.

At present, there are 47 million fixed-line and 65 million mobile connections, officials said. In the fixed-line segment, BSNL and MTNL are the incumbents in their respective areas of operation and continue to enjoy the ‘dominant’ service provider status in fixed-line services.

According to this benchmark, the inter-network congestion level for an acceptable quality of service is less than 0.5 per cent.