A meeting of all the telecom service providers of Ladakh was convened by Secretary, Information Technology, Ladakh, Saugat Biswas on July 3 to explore ways and means to better the voice and data services.

The meeting was attended by BSNL, Reliance Jio, Airtel and Vindhya Telelinks Ltd.

The Airtel and Reliance Jio will improve the quality of connectivity by increasing their spectrum from 5 MHz to 10 MHz. Both the telecom service providers were urged to complete the process of up-gradation of spectrum within a month.
 
Airtel will also install an additional 40 mobile towers 6 in Kargil and 34 in Leh, which will commence shortly. The Secretary, Information Technology, Ladakh extended every cooperation from the UT administration for facilitating the installation of the new mobile towers. In addition, Airtel was requested to complete the process of getting sanctions for more towers for servicing the remaining unserviced areas.
 
Reliance Jio is in the process of installing 53 towers under the Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF) of the Government of India. It was informed by Sandeep Kotwal, Construction head Jio that 10 out of the 53 towers located at Meeru Leh, Sangra, Abran, Akshow, Gyaling, Parkachik, Rangdum, Umba have been activated and another 24 are expected to be activated by the end of July. 
 
BSNL which was facing problems of connectivity due to recurrent breakage of fibre-optic cable at Gangangir in Ganderbal district has resolved the issue and will be extending uninterrupted services to Ladakh. The Divisional Commissioner, Ladakh from his counterpart in Kashmir, has sought cooperation for according easier movement to the BSNL maintenance team in district Ganderbal. 
 
Secretary Biswas informed the telecom service providers that a formal request has been made to the Army 14 Corps for expediting permissions for the laying of OFC/ erection of mobile towers in the border areas. The Telecom service providers were asked to coordinate with the Chief Signal Officer of the 14 Corps for getting the cases expedited at the earliest.
 
It was decided in the meeting that henceforth all telecom services providers will notify their consumers through SMS alerts about service outages for maintenance and up-gradation purposes in advance for the convenience of the consumers. 
 
The meeting was attended by Srikant Suse, Deputy Commissioner, Leh; Khandu D Gangurde, General Manager, BSNL; Sandeep Kotwal, Jio, Construction Head; Salman Magrey, Airtel, Zonal Sales Head; Amit Kotaria, Airtel, Chief Technical Officer; Prabhat Kumar Jha, Project Manager, Vindhya Telelinks Limited, and other officers.