Why are Mumbai's new airport and metro signal-starved?
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Imagine walking into a world-class facility such as the Navi Mumbai International Airport or commuting through the Mumbai Metro Aqua line. The architecture is futuristic, the lighting is perfect, but the moment you pull out your phone, the signal bars drop to zero.
This isn't a technical failure. It is a commercial hostage situation. A high-stakes war is currently raging between infrastructure developers and telecom operators, with the passenger caught in the dead zone.
Mint explains the ongoing connectivity issue, why the telecom and infrastructure operators are refusing to budge, what the rules say, and how the government is responding. On 25 December, when the Adani group-owned Navi Mumbai International Airport (NMIA) began commercial operations, travellers complained about the lack of cellular connectivity there. This meant there were no network signals from India’s private telecom service providers Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea.
The reason? There was no connectivity agreement for the provision of telecom connectivity between the airport and telecom operators. A similar issue has played out at the Mumbai Metro Aqua line, where passengers are facing connectivity issues for the last three months and the two sides have not been able to agree on commercial terms for enabling mobile connectivity. Telecom operators have been quoted charges that they think are “exorbitantly" high.
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