The Calcutta Telephones Story

Thirteen million people spread over an area of 2200 sq. km want to communicate- for obtaining information, in connection with Business, for pleasure. That's where we fit in--the Calcutta Telephones, catering to the basic Telecom service needs over an area covering the Calcutta Metropolitan District and some adjoining areas in districts of Howrah, North and South 24 parganas, Hooghly and Nadia. Not only this, Calcutta is also serving as the communication gateway for the North-Eastern part of the Country with the rest of India and the World.
Not so long ago our customers were unhappy on three counts

It takes a long time to get the Dial Tone you applied for,
It takes a long time to get back the Dial Tone you had before,
It's a long time since our staff had spoken in a pleasant tone the Customers wished for.

Today, Phone connection is readily available (mostly within 7 days) and even ISDN connections are available ON DEMAND in any locality. Service is also much more reliable (fault rate have gone down significantly, calls are routed mostly on single attempt and there is almost no case of call landing on wrong number on account of the network). Latest services like intelligent Network Services are also here.
How did the change happen ?
Till 1990, although there was a steady growth in the Telecom network, but everything was dictated by the waiting lists. Then, in 1990 the Focus Committee chaired by the hon'ble Finance Minister of Government of West Bengal, Mr Ashim Dasgupta first insisted on the necessity of upgrading of the technology to gear up for better service and faster growth.
Next, in 1994 the floodgate for equipment supply was thrown open with the entry of more suppliers with newer technologies and breaking of the monopolies of ITI/HTL/HCL.
We, therefore, could turn our attention towards the aspirations of Telecom Customers. "Matching Services to Rising Customer Expectations’’. The primary requirements however, were (a) Reliability and (b) Ready Availability.
As everyone knows, a Telecom Network has four broad components :

Collection of Exchanges (Switches and RSUs),
Inter-exchange Junctions,
Customer Premises Equipment (CPE),
Customer Access Network (CAN)

So, we started by making our Junction network 100% digital and our set of Exchanges 100% electronic. This we achieved finally by the end of 1998-99. This gave us the desired reliability and call-routing flexibility and enabled us to be ready for a fast growth (easy availability of services on demand).
Regarding improving CPEs, the obvious solution was to improve the quality of instruments and wiring. This also we have started.
So we were left with tackling the problem of the Customer Access Network.
So, 10 Maintenance Areas were created, each with its own Area Manager, acting as a responsibility centre for the following activities in the Area:

Cable Laying
New Connections
Fault Rectification
Area Network Planning
Exchange/RSU Site Finalisation

We realized that reliability would surely improve if we move closer to the localities where the customers are. To achieve this, technology came to our help. All digital switches support installation of subscriber line interface equipment (the line unit) close to the locality<196>being linked to the main switch by means of reliable digital links. So, we commenced in Calcutta Telephones boom time for deploying RSUs. We chose to go for rented accommodation in order to keep our capital investments low and we got very good response indeed. Today (31/3/99) our exchange sites including RSUs total 183 and all of our phone users are within 3 km of his/her Exchange/RSU.
The impact has been dramatic indeed.

RSU installation is very fast -->faster growth and no blocking of resources without use.
The customer access network has been reduced to some distribution cable laying and house wiring--boosting the reliability and cutting costs.
Installation of RSU means availability of digital transmission of media upto the RSU site, i.e. almost upto the customers--thus ensuring our readiness for meeting the future data service requirements.

In addition, we introduced Micro-Tunneling Technique for Cable laying (no digging). Its advantages are :

Cable laying is Fast
Cable can be laid at more Depth (e.g. 2 M) : Less Fault probability and less chance of clash with other UG Utilities
No Damage to Road Surface, No Public Inconvenience

Another very important step we took was that of limiting the number of new technologies in use, thereby ensuring fast adaptation by the staff the new technologies introduced while retaining the flexbility of staff mobilization depending on the requirements.
We, of course, did not stop only at improving the growth prospects. We introduced a host of Customer Services, many of them for the first time in India. These are :

Automatic Changed Number Announcement System (195*).
"152'' Service for non-fault related Complaints. e.g. registering Bill Address or Directory Entry Errors
Directory on CD-ROM.
Calling Line Id Display on ordinary phone lines from E 10B and EWSD exchanges.
Computerised Trunk Manual Exchange for efficient handling of Trunk Calls
Ease in Payment of Phone Bills.

* 150* Service--Billing Information (both outstanding bill and payment update)

* Bill Payment using Pay-in Slips

* Bill Payment through ECS

* 151 Service for booking complaints about lines made TD wrongly<196>by mistake (if any).

* Phone Bills printing with Bar Coding<196> Faster Bill Payment.

Phone on Phone
For Phone Application just Dial and Fix an Appointment with our Staff. Our Staff will meet, help Fill up the Application and collect Payment by Cheque!

Micro-Tunneling Technique for Cable laying (no-digging). Its advantages are :

* Cable Laying is Fast

* Cable can be laid at more Depth (e.g. 2 M) : Less Fault probability and less chance of clash with other UG Utilities

* No Damage to Road Surface, No Public Inconvenience

Naturally, with so many innovations, it is necessary to have a close supervision system. For this purpose, we have adopted several measures, viz.

Information Availability : Anytime Anywhere through extensive computerisation and networking
Our own Data File Transfer + E-Mail service.
Quarterly Traffic Analysis Reports.
PairView System : To keep updated the Cable Record Correspondence
Valuing individual's skills--So we took care to retain staff and officers of the right mix of capabilities and dedication.
Maintaining transparency with the Staff Unions about our strategies, which ensured dedicated support from our staff for achieving the goals.

The results over the last three years have drawn attention of the rest of the Country. We have been surpassing comfortably our targets for the last three years in a row-including that of revenue collection -reaching almost Rs. 900 crores in 1998-99!
We have emerged as the BEST among all the Metro Cities of India. Here are some relevant figures for comparison :

New Connections given during 1998-99 (4 Metro Cities)

MTNL : 90,000 + Delhi
Chennai : 122,000 +
MTNL : 157,000 +Mumbai
Calcutta : 180,000 + TOP

Faults per 100 lines per month (4 Metro Cities)

.	Sep'98 (rainy season)	Jan'99 (best season)
Calcutta	14.4	11.5
Mumbai	15.9	12.8
Chennai	21.0	15.6
Delhi	24.2	33.5

Not only our fault rate is lowest but the variation between the worst and the best seasons are not much-indicating the stability of our network.

What are our Future Challenges ?
Our first challenge is to sustain the improvements in service that has taken place in the recent years and ensure continuity of business from our customers. This would involve :

Arrange continuous flow of Equipment and Funds.
Improve Reliability of operation
Improving the system of Monitoring Network performance,
Better repair facilities,
Infuse enthusiasm among lower level staff to improve productivity in spite of a secure job with no threat of transfer etc.
Improving our dealing with Customers--especially by the lower level staff.
Promote avenues of increasing phone usage by customers (end-users).
Popularize new services like the intelligent Network Services and ISDN through awareness campaign.
Provide Tone Dialing facility for all phone lines. This is because tone dialing is fast and much more accurate. Also, tone dialing is a MUST for all value-added services of the future and intelligent Network Services. But with a huge number of users this is going to be a daunting task.