Telecom secretary Anshu Prakash held a meeting with all the carriers and infrastructure providers to list out all the sites where the towers are down, fibre has been cut and sought to know how many of those can be repaired in next 24 hours. Prakash asked Airtel and Vodafone Idea to get 1,000 sites working in next 24 hours, said industry executives.
Parts of West Bengal, including Kolkata, and Odisha bore the brunt of supercyclone Amphan on Wednesday with winds of up to 185 km per hour, which left over 70 people dead.
NEW DELHI: Supercyclone Amphan has caused widespread damage to telecom networks in West Bengal, and in Odisha to a lesser extent, leaving telcos and infrastructure providers working on a war-footing in close coordination with local authorities to restore services. Telecom secretary Anshu Prakash held a meeting with all the carriers and infrastructure providers to list out all the sites where the towers are down, fibre has been cut and sought to know how many of those can be repaired in next 24 hours. Prakash asked Airtel and Vodafone Idea to get 1,000 sites working in next 24 hours, said industry executives.
According to industry estimates, more than 50% of the tower sites were either damaged or impacted due to interrupted power supply in West Bengal alone. "Severe cyclonic conditions on the eastern coast and massive power outages have disrupted voice and data services.
Vodafone Idea teams are working in extremely tough conditions to restore connectivity at the earliest," Vodafone Idea tweeted on Thursday. A senior industry executive said that Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea networks were hit in West Bengal, while Jio's network was affected in the North and South 24 Parganas in the state.
“Your Airtel network could be experiencing disruptions in certain flood-affected areas due to Cyclone Amphan. Please be assured, our teams are making all possible efforts to ensure that network is up and running in this hour of need. Thank you for your patience and support through this time,” Bharti Airtel said in a tweet to customers.
A senior executive of state-run BSNL said its network in Odisha was “fairly good” but was impacted mostly in Bengal, particularly in Kolkata, and added that 30% of the base transceiver stations (BTS) in WB were affected.
Airtel, Jio and BSNL didn’t respond to emailed queries. Parts of West Bengal, including Kolkata, and Odisha bore the brunt of supercyclone Amphan on Wednesday with winds of up to 185 km per hour, which left over 70 people dead.
In Bengal, of 14,167 telecom sites, 7,000 were non-operational with most of them down due to power outage, as per statistics provided by Tower and Infrastructure Providers Association.
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