Airtel chief seeks help to better connectivity

Patna: Fed up with frequent ‘call drops’? Airtel users may be in for some relief as the telecom company’s chief has written to subscribers to help it identify areas where they face irregular connectivity and sites where mobile towers can be installed to improve the network services.In a novel initiative, Bharti Airtel’s chief executive officer (CEO) (India and South Asia) Gopal Vittal wrote to the firm’s postpaid clients, “If you face significant call drops in your locality, can you help us find a location for a mobile site in the vicinity?” The customers, who face frequent call drops, can log on to airtel.in/h and identify their location on a map.“The fact is India operates under the strictest norms for mobile towers though our emission standards are one tenth of global averages. There are a number of elegant solutions for sites today that are power efficient and can be installed on a roof, and without these sites we cannot provide you the experience we desperately want you to have,” Vittal has written in a personalised communication to Airtel customers. Union communications and IT minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, who was recently in Patna, had also said more mobile towers were needed to improve network connectivity which, according to Vittal, has become a serious problem in most cities due to misplaced fears of the impact of sites and airwaves. “Thousands of customers are not clear why they experience a call drop, but even as you read this, some of our sites are getting shut down across India,” Vittal said.