Gurgaon: Outside Guru Dronacharya metro station, a young techie tries to book a cab using an app on his phone. After struggling with a patchy internet connection for 20 frustrating minutes and restarting his phone several times, he gives up and jumps into an auto to reach Cyber Hub at whatever price the driver quotes.“I had booked a cab but when I tried calling driver, I couldn’t get through as the network was fluctuating. I tried all the hacks but nothing worked. Only the phones are smart now, networks aren’t,” complained Dhruv Sharma, a Vodafone user.
He isn’t alone. Hundreds of mobile subscribers are grappling with poor network coverage, frequent call drops, irritatingly slow internet speed and network outages in several pockets of the city like Udyog Vihar, Cyber City, Golf Course Road, and the new sectors. And this when the central government is inviting tenders for 5G spectrum, aimed at providing faster connectivity and enhanced data speeds.
Changing operators hasn’t been helpful, people are discovering. “I switched from Vodafone to Airtel during Diwali last year and the service was fine until December. The WiFi-calling option in Airtel was also a plus point. But lately, the coverage has become unreliable.
4G doesn’t seem to work and when it does, it runs at 2G speed. While in a cab, we sometimes rely on Google maps for direction, and when the network in certain patches goes off, it gets really scary,” says Pooja Agarwal, an Airtel user.
Users across the city are complaining that they have to change the setting to 3G for their internet to work most of the time. Many are turning to apps that allow voice calling using WiFi.
The worst affected are those who work from home or are part of the gig economy like drivers with app-based cab aggregators and food delivery personnel.
Hari Kumar, a cab driver, speaking about the perils of locating the pick-up or drop point due to slow internet, said, “Many times, I’m unable to reach the location as net slows down and I’m unable to navigate in the right direction. And, sometimes, if I take a wrong turn, the customer starts getting restless and gives a poor rating for not following directions. This impacts our incentives.”
But what is causing this connectivity problem? Industry experts claim the telecom sector is bleeding and that has been affecting the services of the network providers.
The problem in Gurgaon and NCR is that of increased demand and the financial constraints of the companies in expanding the infrastructure to cater to this additional load. From bureaucratic roadblocks in installing new cell sites and towers to mounting adjusted gross revenue (AGR) dues, multiple challenges have crippled investment.
“Voice calling that was around 365 minutes per person has shot up to 880 minutes per person over the past few years. Similarly, data usage has increased 10 tenfold.
The problem of network fluctuation is primarily that of increased traffic in selected pockets like Udyog Vihar. For this, we need network densification and to install more towers. But local administrations delay the work and often want telecoms to pay more,” says Rajan S Mathews, DG, Cellular Operators Association of India.
The government needs to step in and create a space where the sector can grow and the companies can improve the quality of their services, he added. “Say, if license fee is brought down from 14% to 4%-5%, the additional cash-in-hand will go into improving services. That’s how industry grows and services improve,” Mathews said.
Representatives of Airtel and Vodafone, two of the leading service providers, said disruptions might be specific to some locations and they provide the best service in the area. “Vodafone has been verified as the fastest 4G network in Delhi-NCR with its download speeds being higher than other operators for July – September 2019 period, according to Ookla,” a Vodafone spokesperson told TOI.
Airtel claimed that the tuning of upgraded networks will be done in 5-7 days and this will ‘dramatically improve user experience’. “In Delhi NCR, especially Gurgaon, we have made significant investments to upgrade and build a world-class network,” an Airtel spokesperson said.
