850 crore Communications Infrastructure Loss for Kashmir Valley

It was Sunday, 7th of September around 3:30-4pm, all of a sudden the mobile systems started dying. One after the other the signals went off. People in touch with their relatives stuck at their homes with over 16 feet of water around, were trying to reach out to know the latest. Whether, their relatives are alive? The house exists? Have they been evacuated? These were some of the questions that every relative and friend wanted an answer for and was attempting a mobile call. As the mobile signals faded out, in desperation, people started coming on to the top floor of their homes to catch an airwave. By now, the only communication medium for many homes, the radio went off. This panicked everyone. It was a complete blackout. For the first time in recent years, people lived in complete dark, literally and with no idea of how and where their dear ones were, if they were alive.

The two posh areas of the city Jawaharnagar and Rajbagh were inundated besides others of Sonwar, Shivpora, Indranagar, Bemina, Nursinghar and the commercial hubs of Lal Chowk, Hari Singh High Street, Residency Road, Polo View and just about every other location... was getting submerged in waters. Monday onwards relatives of the people stuck in these areas were seen attempting to reach out to their relatives and get them on a safer bank. One such hub was the Barzulla bridge, where large number of people were trying to find a way, in fact, a boat to reach out to their loved ones. It was only at such hubs that one would come to know that the only cellular service that was working was Aircel 3G network, that too in the areas where the BTS was not affected. The last call that relatives could make over Aircel network in the affected areas was around 3 am on Monday, 8th of September. For the areas that were inundated, the BTS was obviously affected primarily because there was no source of powering it. The grid supply was off and the generators had run dry and there was no way to refuel these. The whole valley was running out of fuel.

Landline the savior

Relief came when BSNL restored its mobile network to some extent and by Wednesday most of the people were connected again through the BSNL mobiles. In areas served through the Barzulla exchange of the service provider, the landline services including the broadband never went off. The residents in these areas were able to communicate, but not many people had their landlines working, as the mobiles had resulted in the decline in landline usage. Many people were cursing themselves as to why did they withdraw their landline connection for a mobile connection.

After BSNL mobile services were partially restored, many people for the first time since May-day, were able to talk to their rescued relatives and would not believe their ears that they are talking to the relatives about whom they had all types of fears during those testing 100 hours or so. By the time, other operators also started restoring and were allowed latching on to other operators’ networks to facilitate voice calls on a mobile network. But even after 20 days, the networks were not fully operational and optimized.

So, what has really happened to the telecom infrastructure that even today it’s not fully operational and as per preliminary estimates it could take another month or so for the operators, especially BSNL to restore the services completely as it also has the fixed line network infrastructure apart from the mobile services.

For BSNL, that provides fixed and mobile voice as well as the data services to individuals and the enterprises in the valley, we can easily say all is damaged except for the Barzulla exchange in the Srinagar city. All its equipment are completely damaged and need to be replaced. The core components that are damaged include:-

MSC affecting the mobile services in the entire valley.

6 BSCs.

150 GSM sites / BTS.

Equipment servicing landline and broadband at the main telephone exchange of the city, CTO Lal Chowk.

9 Telephone Exchanges of Dalgate, Rajbagh, Indira Nagar, Karan Nagar, Nowgam, Rainawari, Bemina, Narbal and Bijbehara.

Broadband Main Servicing Centre including BNG and DSLAMs installed in the affected exchanges.

Long Distance Transmission Media connecting different exchanges to outside valley, affecting the NLD and ILD services.

Equipments enabling CMDA/WiMAX/EVDO and WLL services.

MLLNs and Leased Lines providing connectivity to Banks, Government offices and other vital installations.

Access infrastructure including cabling (Copper and Optic), Cabinets, Poles, DP boxes, etc.

Main Customer Service Centre.

Important Office Records including Customer Records and Service records of over 1,000 employees.

Heavy damage to core telecom infrastructure

In a very conservative preliminary estimate, BSNL alone pegs its infrastructure loss at over `400 crore excluding the damages to the infrastructure outside the local offices / exchanges. At many places, the optic as well as fibre cables have been plucked by people to tie boats, use as ropeways, etc. during the rescue operations. To add to it is the revenue loss. In addition to BSNL, other operators offering mobile and VSAT services including Airtel, Aircel, Vodafone, Idea, Reliance and Hughes have also suffered similar damages to their infrastructure. Adding up all their losses, the cumulative damages to the telecom infrastructure of the valley is estimated at over Rs 850 crore.

Restoration is an uphill task anywhere. In the valley it is more complex. The physical connectivity is still an issue. Though major city trunks are now accessible, several exchanges are still submerged and once the water comes out of these places and the places are properly sanitized and dried, the restoration work can start. To add to the ordeal, the winter is at the threshold. By October 15, we will see the winter arriving and it will affect the working conditions, making the task harder. To further add to the complexity, many employees of these telecom operators have been rendered homeless. They are either putting up at the relief camps or are with their relatives and yet to fully restart their activities. For them, the biggest question hounding their minds is whether they can go back to their homes again even in sometime. These homes are their only shelters besides the only achievements for majority of them that has been carved out of lifelong hard work and sweat. In such traumatic conditions, how well can they perform their professional duties is a challenge.

There has to be a holistic approach that these operators need to resort to while working on the restoration. It has to be quick and a complete solution rather than a stop-gap arrangement that might not work satisfactorily as the networks start to light again and people use the networks the way they used to.

(First hand account of the ravage caused by floods  in Jammu & Kashmir by Faisal Kawoosa who lived this  100-hour nightmare. Some of the inputs were provided by D K Aggarwal, GMT, BSNL Kashmir)