For 9 hours, 3 million mobiles go dead

NEW DELHI: Municipal elections in Ghaziabad on Friday left mobile subscribers in the city in a jam, literally. Residents of Ghaziabad, Noida and even some parts of east Delhi woke up to jammed mobile networks and zero signals as operators were ordered to shut down their networks in the region to ensure smooth polling.
The network jam put over three million mobile users — both GSM and CDMA — in the region out of reach for nine hours, starting 8 am on Friday.The networks were blocked under orders from Ghaziabad district magistrate M K S Sundaram, who felt that the exercise would curb rumour mills and ensure smooth conduct of elections.
Sundaram, in an order to Cellular Operators Association of India on November 2, had directed all operators, including the state-owned BSNL, to ensure that all mobile phone services be jammed on November 3 from 8 am till 5 pm. Violation of this order would have attracted simple imprisonment for one month under Section 188 of IPC. While some operators chose to alert their subscribers through SMS, others were not as proactive.
Though the order pertained only to Ghaziabad, mobile users in parts of Noida and east Delhi were also affected. "Since each mobile tower has three sides that provide services in three different directions via six trans-receivers, it was expected that areas adjoining Ghaziabad would also bear losses, both in terms of services and revenues," said an executive with a GSM service provider.