The CPI(M) activists staged a dharna at the BSNL divisional office here on Monday in protest against the poor quality of the CellOne services. In a memorandum submitted to the Divisional Engineer Venkataratnam, CPI (M) town secretary Gopalan complained that the BSNL mobile customers were put to hardship due to poor signal coverage, lack of voice clarity and the problem of crosstalk.
He appealed to the BSNL authorities for installation of more towers and augment infrastructure facilities in tune with the increasing number of CellOne mobile connections. The CPI(M) also registered its strong protest against removal of the directory inquiry services through 197 by the BSNL authorities. Mr. Gopalan said a number of BSNL mobile customers were forced to migrate to private service providers.
According to official information, there were over 50,000 BSNL mobile connections in the Bhimavaram division with six mandals. The Divisional Engineer attributed the poor quality of the CellOne services to the inadequate number of mobile towers. There were 35 mobile towers in the town and each of them was failing to transmit signal coverage beyond the radial distance of 500 metres. Replacement of batteries in the cell towers was overdue which was also responsible for the poor quality of mobile phone services, he added.
