Mobile phone towers in Bhubaneswar. Picture by Ashwinee Pati

Bhubaneswar, June 15: The Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited, which provides about three lakh mobile connections in the city, hopes to improve its service in the next seven to 10 days. Mobile subscribers across the city have been complaining about its poor service quality for quite some time now.

“Major telecom equipment manufactured by European telecom major Erickson are now being exchanged with machines from ZTE Corporation, China. As the integration of the existing network with the new one takes some time, there is a short-term technical glitch in the network,” said an official.

The state capital has approximately 3 lakh mobile phone subscribers under BSNL, the highest under any mobile service provider. Poor voice quality and network, lack of tower and call dropping amidst conversation are major complaints that come with the BSNL network.

Antaryami Patra, an engineer with the municipal corporation, said: “I am facing a difficult time with my BSNL mobile connection. As most of the people in my friend circle, office, state government and the private sector use this service, communicating with them has become a difficult task with the mobile service failing to deliver.”

“Everybody is talking about poor service quality in other sectors, but being in an important service provider run by the central government, the BSNL authorities should correct their network at the earliest to ensure better service. They should have issued a public notice regarding the transition as the installation of the new equipment is likely to cause some short-term integration problem,’’ said Subhendu Mohapatra, a city-based entrepreneur.

Aishwarya Parida, a Plus Three student from Pokhariput said: “In our locality, the speed of Internet with the BSNL data card has become very slow. At some moments, you have to run to the first floor or to the rooftop to have a reasonable Internet speed. But at times, even this does not yield any result.”

Senior general manager (mobile technology) Bijayananda Mishra said: “The upgrade in the technology is for the better service delivery. Work in a phase was over in March-April and the current work in the remaining pockets will also be over shortly. The upgrade will help in better data response, Internet access and faster service.”

Mishra, who is in charge of network consumer mobility wing of the telecom major’s local telecom district, said system upgrade was a usual process in the telecom industry. At present, the city telecom network is using equipment manufactured by Erickson, ZTE and Nortel.

Responding to the complaint of poor coverage and slow Internet speed in some areas, the senior BSNL official said: “Many peripheral areas such as Pokhariput needs installation of new mobile towers. In fact, the BSNL has identified 56 places where mobile towers should be erected for better network. But getting a land or rooftop for towers has become a serious concern. At present, the BSNL has 150 towers in the city.’’

“People have become extra cautious regarding safety of their rooftop because of cyclones and the radiation hazards. So, we are not getting locations to erect them and the service is getting affected,’’ he explained.