Telcos’ proactive planning, preventive steps ensure minimal monsoon woes

MUMBAI: Telecom operators have created war rooms, set up protective covers on their tower sites, installed motor pumps and generators in critical areas in case of any power outage and even sent special infra teams to cross-check impact on network in case of flooding. And yet analysts said customers need to brace for poor connectivity as rains will aggravate the effects of already choked networks.

In a statement to ET, India's No 1 telco, Vodafone Idea, said it started preparing for monsoons from January and worked to protect equipment and prevent damage from rains.

“We had covered nearly 100% of the physical sites along with infra partners to ensure these sites are ready for monsoon with extra taping and with probable leakage protection by providing critical shelters/sites. Critical sites are equipped with motor pumps as precaution," said the Kumar Mangalam Birla-led telco.


The operator with over 393.25 million subscribers created special infra teams in each cluster to ensure power availability as well as power line isolation in case of flooding.

These steps come on the back on the advent of monsoons in India that disrupts networks across circles. Call drops and punctuated data connectivity are common problems set to be aggravated in the next few rainy months.

“Telcos are shifting from 3G network to 4G, there is high data congestion and operators are facing challenges while toggling between different platforms across the country. On top of that, monsoons are bound to aggravate the situation and customers will face connectvity issues,” said Hemant M Joshi, technology, media and telecommunications leader, Deloitte India.

Monsoons are expected to hit the northern belt in the next few days but on Monday and Tuesday, Mumbai received heavy downpour which brought India Inc and public life to a standstill.

Bharti Airtel told ET it “managed to keep its mobile network in Mumbai up and running through proactive planning and management” and will take similar precautions in other parts of the country as well.

The Sunil Mittal-led operator, with nearly 322 million subscribers, upgraded battery backup capacity for sites prone to power cuts during monsoon. “By analysing historical data, Airtel’s network teams have identified site locations across the city more likely to get impacted and redesigned the transmission network resulting in a more robust network.”

Pre-monsoon checks and special weather-proofing jackets were installed in key areas of Mumbai, Airtel added.

Both Vodafone Idea and Airtel have set up war rooms to monitor their respective networks and stocked up on spares in case of a breakdown.

However, the work of ensuring a network continues is not just the operator's. “Seamless connectivity and network uptimes requires the entire ecosystem of operator, managed services provider and tower companies amongst others, to work in tandom. Our tariffs are amongst the lowest and our network voice and data usage per sub is the highest in the world. Despite declining returns on investment, operators have done a good job in maintaining the quality of service,” said Bharat Bhargava, partner, telecom advisory services, for EY.