Amid the coronavirus outbreak Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Idea and Reliance Jio Infocomm may roll out 'cells on wheels' (CoWs) to ease the increasing pressure on network providers, according to a report by The Economic Times.
CoW sites are pieces of infrastructure on which base stations and antennae can be mounted and wheeled to boost capacity and congestion.
India is in a lockdown for 21 days starting from March 25, which will place increasing pressure on network providers as people have started working from home. Increased consumption of video services will also add to the network congestion.
Moneycontrol could not independently verify the story.
A spokesperson for Vodafone Idea told ET that the company was boosting capacity through various means, including “addition of CoW sites”.
Also Read: Digital companies to cut video-streaming quality to ease network congestion
"We have also requested DoT to clear our pending applications for spectrum allocation and are hopeful it will expedite our spectrum liberalisation requests and regularise our backhaul spectrum as well," the spokesperson said.
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Once the telecom department clears additional spectrum allocations, telecom companies will apply to local municipalities for approval to set up CoWs.
(Disclaimer: Reliance Industries Ltd., which owns Jio, is the sole beneficiary of Independent Media Trust which controls Network18 Media & Investments Ltd)
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