DoT wireless wing cracks down on illegal signal boosters in Delhi

The wireless monitoring wing of the Department of Telecom has identified 88 illegal mobile signal boosters in the national capital and removed 70 of them in the last three days, a senior official of the department said on Monday.

The Wireless Monitoring Organisation will continue with raids and awareness campaigns till February 24 in other parts of Delhi to bring down illegal devices that deteriorate mobile signals around places where they are installed.

“We have removed 70 illegal mobile signal boosters in the last three working days and served 18 notices to people from whose premises we could not reach. People are generally not aware that these devices are illegal. People have been very cooperative during the drive,” International Monitoring Station Engineer-in-charge Devendra Kumar Rai told PTI.

The WMO team had removed 48 illegal mobile signal boosters and issued notice to 11 entities in the Connaught Place area on Friday and Saturday.

The drive was conducted in Hauz Khas area where 21 illegal devices were removed and notice was issued to seven entities asking them to surrender the boosters within seven days, Rai said.

Illegal mobile signal repeaters have become a major nuisance and are one of the biggest reasons for customers facing network issues like call drops and low data speeds.

These illegal repeaters are installed by individuals or establishments at homes, offices to boost mobile signals.

“After removal of the boosters, people also reported improvement in their mobile signals,” Rai said.

Telecom operators have frequently raised the issue before DoT to bring down illegal mobile signal boosters as they adversely impact the quality of service that result in call drops, slow data speed etc.

In 2020, approximately 400 illegal mobile signal boosters were removed. This campaign is against illegal mobile signal boosters which lead to call drops and lowering of mobile network connectivity, Rai said.

DoT has removed around 500 illegal devices through various drives conducted in the last one and a half years. PTI