Cyclone Arnab: DoT Restores Telecom Links in Two States

Cyclone Arnab came ashore along the coast of Andhra Pradesh and Odisha, and the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has been working with telecom service providers to keep essential communication running in the districts it struck. Heavy rain over a wide area, flash floods, falling trees and damage to power lines had knocked out mobile and fibre services in parts of both States and the regions next to them.

Where the network stands

Repair work has moved fastest where electricity supply has been brought back and cut optical fibre has been joined again. Overall telecom network availability in Andhra Pradesh has climbed to 99.18 percent. Among the districts the storm hit hardest, the figure is 98.5 per cent in West Godavari and 91.96 per cent in Dr. B. R. Ambedkar Konaseema. Loss of commercial power supply and local optical fibre cable (OFC) cuts remain the two chief reasons some sites are still out of service.

Emergency arrangements

Intra-Circle Roaming (ICR) has been kept running across the affected districts, so a subscriber can latch on to another company's network inside the same telecom circle no matter which operator sold the SIM. Eleven Cell on Wheels (COWs), that is towers mounted on vehicles and driven to where coverage has gone, have been put in place to strengthen emergency communication.

The position in Odisha

In Odisha the picture in Ganjam, Gajapati and Kandhamal districts has been getting better as the rain eases and floodwater drains away. Operators have begun repairs at the damaged sites, service breaks are fewer, and all of them have been told to treat the remaining sites as a priority so that normal service returns early.

How a subscriber uses ICR

When mobile infrastructure in a region is damaged, DoT instructs operators to switch ICR on. A handset should be left on automatic network selection; if it still does not connect, the user can open the mobile network settings, open the list of network operators and pick another available network by hand. Because it lets a phone ride on any operator present in the circle, ICR matters most in the first days after a natural disaster, when relief and restoration teams also depend on the same towers.