Try calling the person next to you on his or her cellphone and the chances are that nine times out of ten, you will be greeted by an accented voice reciting, ?The customer you have called is currently out of range or not responding at the moment?.

Complaints of deteriorating quality of cellular service in Jharkhand have been flooding the service providers, who pass the buck saying the subscriber base has increased manifold which the infrastructure is not equipped to handle.

Getting through to mobile numbers is frustrating, sometimes funnily so. There have been cases when a call is made to the person standing just beside and the voice on the phone tells you that the dialled number is out of range or not reachable. When the number of a person is dialled from one floor to the next, the voice on the phone says that service is not available on the number.

Ranchi, at present, has four mobile service providers: BSNL, Reliance, Airtel and Tata Indicom. While BSNL and Reliance have been providing their services for the past five years, Airtel and Tata Indicom have just set up bases here.

The Telegraph spoke to people from a number of segments to get to know about the problems they have been facing with the mobile service. The problems they pointed out are similar with almost all service providers.

n Vishnu Budhia: Former president of Federation of Jharkhand Chamber of Commerce and Industries (FJCCI) and a dealer of heavy machinery

We are used to protesting over electricity woes. When there was a power crisis in the state capital recently, everyone, including the media, came out in open protest against the state electricity board.

But then there have been no voices raised when mobile services, which have become the main mode of communication, have not been operating properly for the past three months. It at times threatens to affect my business prospects. I have given most of my business associates my mobile phone number as my contact number. They have repeatedly told me that my mobile has not been functioning properly.

It?s not just the time factor, there have been financial losses as well. Often you dial a number, but don?t get to hear anyone on the other side. Yet, the seconds start ticking as soon as contact is made. Even calls made from a landline to a mobile phone have been affected.

n Arya Pranav Chaitanya: Physician, Harmu Hospital

The point is though I might not be facing a financial problem, why should I pay for some service which I have not used? You cannot listen to the voice of the person on the other end after contact is made, and yet you get billed. I have visited the customer service centre of my service provider at least six times but to no avail. The person at the customer helpdesk told me that he accepts a 100 such applications every day.

People using more than one mobile service facility too are dissatisfied. The problem is far worse for those who need information quickly.

nAnimesh Bansariar: Chief executive, Neolinux Solutions

I use the services of three service providers so that I might be easily available to a client who calls up. But then that has hardly been of any help. Even if I am able to connect to the person concerned there can be other problems. The voice of the person on the other end might not be audible.

nMahesh Jain: Chartered accountant

Apart from carrying out my CA practice, I deal in shares. For that I require regular updates about the current rate of shares. I am in serious trouble if I am not able to contact my broker immediately when I require it.

n Mahendra Kumar: Chief general manager, BSNL

The culprit is congestion. It?s not that we do not understand the problem. We have been taking the steps required to tackle the situation. We have placed orders with Nortel and Ericsson to set up the equipment required to handle additional users. Once the technology is in place, we will be able to handle more than 3 lakh customers. Ericsson was to supply the equipment to us by April. But considering the problems we are facing, we want them to set up the infrastructure this month itself.

n Reliance: Connectivity problems occur when the infrastructure is not able to handle the number of users. A call passes through three interfaces before reaching its destination. This includes the base trans-receiver station (BTRS), the main switch centre and the point of interconnect channel. Supposing if one of these portions has a capacity to handle 20,000 calls, call number 20,001 may not be directed to its destination properly.

n Airtel: We do not face the problem of congestion. There were problems related to point of interconnection with other companies. This means people using our service were not being able to access calls from other providers.

Note: Reliance and Airtel officials spoke on condition of anonymity